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FILE - In this Dec. 17, 2015, file photo, Martin Shkreli, center, the former hedge fund manager under fire for buying a pharmaceutical company and ratcheting up the price of a life-saving drug, is escorted by law enforcement agents in New York after being taken into custody following a securities probe. Jurors heard testimony from the government's last witness on Tuesday, July 25, 2017, a day after Shkreli's lawyer told the court his client won't take the witness stand during his securities fraud trial. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle, File) NEW YORK (AP) — Wealthy investors say former biotech CEO Martin Shkreli told them he was managing tens of millions of dollars’ worth of investments, that they were making double-digit returns and they could withdraw their money at any time. Prosecutors in closing arguments Thursday at Shkreli’s securities fraud trial said it was all a brazen con. The defense countered that no one should feel sorry for the alleged victims because they were high-rollers who ended up doubling or tripling their money. Shkreli, 34, is best known for jacking up the price of a life-saving drug and trolling his critics on social media, but his trial in Brooklyn has focused on his time running a pair of hedge funds. Assistant U.S. Attorney Alixandra Smith told jurors Shkreli “lied to investors to get their money into the funds and then lied to them so they wouldn’t take it out.” The prosecutor recounted testimony by investors who told jurors that Shkreli claimed to be managing up to $40 million in one of his firms at a time when its brokerage account held only a few hundred dollars. When one investor asked for his money back, Shkreli stalled for months until he used a Ponzi-like scheme to secretly raid a second fund to return a portion of the funds, she said. “The defendant was lying not only about the ability to get a redemption, but also about where that money was coming from,” she said. As Shkreli was “blowing up” his hedge funds with bad stock picks, he continued to recruit new investors by portraying himself as a Wall Street whiz who graduated from Columbia University, Smith said. He really attended a lesser-known public university, Baruch College. Claims “that he was some sort of genius in the investing industry were completely untrue,” she said. The defense has sought to portray the impish Shkreli as a misunderstood eccentric who slept on the floor of his office in a sleeping bag for two years while starting a successful drug company that allowed him to enrich his alleged victims. “Who does that if you’re committing a fraud and you have millions of dollars in people’s money?” said his attorney, Ben Brafman. “He has no life. He’s the hermit scientist.” Shkreli is “not a Ponzi guy who’s taking money and buying a Cadillac or a yacht,” the lawyer added at another point. The lawyer agreed Shkreli could be annoying, saying, “In terms of people skills, he’s impossible.” But he claimed the clients who appeared as government witnesses were still eager to bet on him. Investors “found him strange. They found him weird. And they gave him money. Why? Because they recognized genius,” Brafman said. Shkreli didn’t testify, but throughout the trial he has used Facebook to bash prosecutors and news organizations covering his case, despite his lawyer’s efforts to shut him up. In one recent post, he wrote, “This was a bogus case from day one.” The trial is in its fifth week. Jury deliberations could begin on Friday.

As Ann Cabiness stood in the Communion line at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church on Sunday morning, two things were on her mind: connecting with God and getting out of the humid sanctuary before someone mentioned her skimpy tank top and tight, knee-length running pants. “I know I’m inappropriate, but I’m trying to save time. I know I’m in the wrong. My mother would not approve,” the 30-year-old said sheepishly as she made a beeline from Mass at the Bethesda church to the gym. “But would it be better that I not come?” Summer in our sweltering region forces a theological question: How does God feel about exposed shoulders in a house of worship? Or toes? Or some glimpse of thigh? With temperatures in the 80s by 7:30 a.m. services, this is the season for church bulletin items like the one in Our Lady’s: “Dignity & Decorum: Please try not to wear beach shorts, tank tops, and flip-flops to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Thank you.” In general, casual has pummeled formal everywhere in America, from airplanes to offices. But places of worship — where debates on modesty are not confined to the summer months — may be the final frontier for questions about what constitutes overly risque. And those questions have recently sprung to new life. A popular campaign aimed at young evangelical women called “Modest is Hottest” has triggered backlash by devout younger women who see the slogan as sexist. When the Bible calls for “modesty,” they argue, it refers to displays of things like wealth and is describing the depth of one’s spirit, not their neckline.Teaching women that their value rises if they have more clothes on is objectifying, a torrent of essays have argued. “A woman’s breasts and buttocks and thighs all proclaim the glory of the Lord,” said Sharon Hodde Miller, a doctoral student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School whose critique of “modest is hottest” in the online evangelical magazine Christianity Today was one of the best-read of recent years. “Modesty is an orientation of the heart, first and foremost. It begins with putting God first. To look at an outfit and say if it’s modest or immodest, I’m not sure you can do that.” Some critics say the drive for looser, longer fabric has political tones, a “modesty nostalgia” for a happier, more fully clothed America that some feel never was. But advocates for less skin in the sanctuary see modest attire as transformational — part of the process of moving into a spiritual head space. Particularly today as institutional religion bleeds members, many churches — even some theologically conservative ones — advertise that dress is “come as you are.” “We don’t want clothes to ever be a barrier. That’s one reason we don’t talk about it,” said the Rev. Don Davidson of First Baptist Church of Alexandria. Some even argue that informal clothing signals not a new lack of respect for institutional religion but a new genuineness and familiarity. Grass-roots pew patrolling, on the other hand, is as alive as ever. Charisma Wooten, a singer and actor, had been a parishioner and lay leader at Refreshing Spring Church of God in Christ in Riverdale for more than 30 years when she was told moments before taking the pulpit for a Scripture reading one baking July Sunday a couple of years ago that she couldn’t because she didn’t have on pantyhose. Wooten said she was wearing a dress that nearly hit the floor, but Church of God in Christ is a formal denomination where ushers wear gloves and the handbook says that “dressing in a sensually provocative manner produces inclinations to evil desires.” Another summer Sunday, Wooten was wearing a sleeveless black-and-white polka-dot dress and “my little matching shoes and hat,” when the pastor’s wife said sweetly: “Honey, aren’t you cold?” It took Wooten three days to realize she was likely being politely asked to cover her shoulders. Wooten says she generally brushes it off when she’s been scolded for her church clothes, but the pantyhose incident led her to send a mass e-mail decrying the misplaced focus on rules and dogma. “You can follow all these rules men set up and be on your way to hell,” she said. Concepts of appropriate dress are, of course, a mix of denominational, regional, racial and ethnic components, and they are sometimes specific in unpredictable ways. Black churches are generally known for formal, modest and elaborate style, even in summer. Catholics stereotypically are dressed simply for Mass — full suits and hats are less common, as are plunging necklines. Rainey Ray Segars, 26, grew up with a Southern Baptist pastor-father in Tennessee, where shorts were common around church but strapless dresses were not. At 24, she moved with her new youth-pastor-husband to Illinois and found out on the first warm week since their move that jeans and Packers jerseys were fine at church activities but shorts were not. After coming to a choir practice in shorts, a congregant “sent by a group of offended people” told Segars that she had caused someone to be lustfully distracted — “That it was my fault,” Segars remembered. “I said, ‘I’m interested to know if that person will seek out help for themselves,’ ’’ Segars said. “I don’t agree that a woman is to blame for lust someone feels towards her. My thought was to start a dialogue.” Did she? “It was like: ‘Yeah, that’s all fine, but please don’t wear shorts,’ ” she remembered. The congregation she’s part of now, Segars said, includes a huge range of dress and cover. “I think it shows a loveliness and a comfort: ‘I came just as I am, just looking to be known.’ It communicates a safety I think is really beautiful,” she said. Conversations (and condemnations) on the issue of modest clothing and summer worship seem to focus on women. Monsignor Ed Filardi said he put the notice in the bulletin at Our Lady of Lourdes at the request of women reacting to the clothing of other women. Personally, he said, he doesn’t see a real problem, though after services Sunday morning one usher engaged the priest on the topic. “You’re coming to see the Lord,” said Len Thompson, 65, recently retired from the Navy, and one of two men out of about 80 wearing a jacket at Mass. “What if I was going to see the Obamas? It seems skewed.” Foundry United Methodist Church in Dupont has many gay men as members, and last Sunday many men present wore dress shorts and polo shirts. “I’m not sure if my shins are distracting anyone in here,” one 39-year-old man, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said with a smile. Discussions about possible sins of immodesty inevitably lead to discussions about another sin: judging. “Jesus is most strong when he speaks about judging people,” said Johnnie Moore, youth pastor at the evangelical Liberty University, noting students have come to his services in pajamas. That said, he feels religious and secular Americans are joining forces over concern about an oversexualized youth culture. “Generally speaking, you shouldn’t come to church as you would to a club,” he said. Northwest Washington image consultant Ketura Persellin has written about appropriate clothing for worship, down to the size of bag, jangly jewelry and skirt length. This is a woman who cares about clothes. But as her preteen children are getting older, Persellin finds herself less tolerant of clothing chatter at her synagogue, Adas Israel. “I don’t want people talking about my kids like that,” she said. “I’ve definitely been trying to get down from my high horse.”

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel sentenced an Arab citizen to 30 months’ imprisonment on Monday for endangering national security by briefly joining Syrian rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad. Hikmat Massarwa (R), a member of Israel's Arab minority, attends a remand hearing at the Central District Court in Lod, near Tel Aviv April 25, 2013. REUTERS/Baz Ratner Hikmat Massarwa’s case was unprecedented, and the relatively light penalty handed down to him as part of a plea bargain reflected Israel’s indecision about who - if anyone - to back in its northern neighbor’s civil war. Massarwa was arrested on March 19 upon returning via Turkey from Syria, where he had spent a week at a rebel base. Israeli prosecutors accused him of undergoing small-arms training by radical Islamists there who asked him to carry out a suicide attack in Israel - although, by all accounts, he declined. Those charges carried a maximum 15-year jail term. But prosecutors appeared unable, from the outset, to throw the book at Massarwa because of Israeli haziness about the Syria crisis. “There’s no legal guidance regarding the rebel groups fighting in Syria,” Judge Avraham Yaakov said at a session of the trial at Lod district court, south of Tel Aviv, in May. Massarwa, a 29-year-old baker, at first denied wrongdoing, saying he had gone to Syria to seek a brother missing since joining the insurgency. He also argued that the Western-backed anti-Assad rebels should not be regarded as a danger to Israel. But, changing tack on Monday, Massarwa confessed to unlawfully travelling to a hostile state and meeting what prosecutors designated a “foreign agent”. In turn, they dropped the count against him of illicitly receiving military training. Under the plea bargain, Massarwa acknowledged his actions “had potential to threaten the security of the state of Israel”. Technically at war with Syria, Israel enjoyed decades of stable ceasefire while the Assad family ruled unchallenged in Syria. It fears that, if Damascus falls to the Islamist-dominated rebels, jihadis among them will have a Syrian springboard for striking at the Jewish state. Such concern has been stoked in recent months by Syrian gunfire and shelling into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, incidents in which Israel has routinely shot back. Israel took the Golan from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war. Arabs, most of them Muslim, make up around 20 percent of Israel’s population. They seldom take up arms with its enemies. Yet some Israeli officials privately described Massarwa’s trial as a bid to deter other Arab citizens from going to Syria and possibly acquiring the Islamist agenda and fighting savvy that could drive them to turn to violence once back home. “The prosecution were definitely looking for a deterrent effect here, and they got it, even though they scaled down the penalty,” Massarwa’s lawyer, Helal Jaber, told Reuters. But he added that Israeli Arab volunteerism for the Syrian civil war was “hardly a phenomenon. We are talking about two or three people - bad apples. The overwhelming majority of the community are loyal to the state of Israel”. (This story is refiled to add dropped letter in penultimate paragraph quote)

The view from Mount Sunflower, Kansas’s highest elevation. (Image: CC0) Geographer Jerry Dobson had barely started his new job at the University of Kansas when a realization hit. Whenever he told friends and colleagues about his gig, people would smile, congratulate him, the works. But then, almost inevitably, they’d make some crack about his new home state: specifically, how flat it was. Over his years-long tenure, this did not change. “Everytime you meet someone, they say it—and it’s not true,” he says. “I always looked around and saw hills.” But Dobson is a geographer, able to translate this frustration into motivation. A few years ago, he and his colleague Joshua Campbell—a born and raised Kansan—undertook a project. They set out to measure the flatness of every state in the union, using an algorithm designed to calculate how flat each one looks from different points in its interior—what Campbell calls “that feeling of total flatness.” When they got the results back, Kansas was in a respectable seventh, behind Delaware, North Dakota, and the clear winner, Florida. Since then, Dobson and Campbell have toured their results around, using them to argue against the flat-Kansas mythology. Bluff along the Salt Fork of the Arkansas River. #gyphills Photo by @flinthillsboy Use #kansasaintflat to be featured A photo posted by Kansas (@kansasaintflat) on May 31, 2016 at 7:25pm PDT So how did Kansas get this reputation? Andy Stuhl, a musician who recently moved there by car, bets it comes from East Coast road-trippers, who spill out onto the plain after miles and miles of woods. Sam Huneke, a historian who grew up in Lawrence, points to a lack of particularly large hills, but insists that “the day-to-day experience is not one of flatness.” What is clear is that, like Dobson, they don’t much like it. “Of course it affects our reputation,” says Kelli Hilliard of the Kansas Tourism Board, pointing towards efforts to change that, like a set of scenic, rolling byways, and an Instagram account called “kansasaintflat.” But Branden Rishel, a Washington-based cartographer, has a different, more radical idea: If everyone already thinks Kansas is flat, why not lean in? Why not just make it flat—totally, completely flat? Rishel is very familiar with the Kansas flatness question. He was a student of Mark Fonstad, a Texas State geographer who, in 2003, set out with some colleagues and a laser microscope to determine which was flatter: Kansas or an IHOP pancake. The resulting study, titled “Kansas Is Flatter Than a Pancake,” likely added to the public misconceptions that rankle Dobson and Campbell. (They also point out that, if you use the particular mathematical approach of Fonstad et al, “there is no place on Earth that is not flatter than a pancake.”) Despite his academic parentage, Rishel doesn’t disagree with Dobson and Campbell—“if Kansas is a sloped and hummocky lawn, Florida is a parking lot,” he says. He also agrees that perceived flatness is probably bad for the state’s reputation. He just thinks the best solution involves less fact-checking and more literal digging. “Kansans should reclaim and celebrate flatness,” Rishel says. “Kansas should become more flat than flat.” Kansas, in Rishel’s ideal future. (Image: Branden Rishel) About a year ago, Rishel posted a mocked-up map of Totally Flat Kansas on his blog, Cartographers Without Borders, along with a skeleton of his plan. The image, in which a smooth, sleek Kansas sits embedded in the bumpy continent like a tooth in a gum, is immediately appealing. It gives the sense of a state that has taken charge of its own destiny and has ended up several thousand years ahead of the rest of us, in a state of David Bowie-esque aesthetic precision. It makes Kansas look cool. The plan, which he elaborated for me, goes as follows: Start in the middle of the state and dig west, towards Colorado. Send that excavated dirt due east, and lay it out as you go, filling in all possible nooks, crannies, valleys, etc. By the end, you will have moved 5,501 cubic miles of soil—over 9 billion Olympic swimming pools’ worth, Rishel points out. To even begin to do this, you’d need a whole lot of technology that hasn’t been invented yet (moveable pipelines, huge nuclear-powered mining machines, all that jazz). But the state would end up flat enough to test a level on, separated from its neighbors by enormous cliffs. Rishel is a great evangelist for this plan. Besides the obvious recreational benefits—interstate cliff diving, endless ice skating in wet winters—total flatness would make Kansas a geographically fascinating spot, he says. There would be new plant life under the giant cliffs, which wouldn’t see the sun until noon. The Arkansas River would plunge down from Colorado, free-falling into the western edge of the state. “Tourists could take an elevator into Kansas and play bocce,” Rishel imagines, his enthusiasm palpable. “The region would turn into a giant puddle after storms… Visitors would discover that flat is never boring.” A northeast view of Lawrence from the top of Mt. Oread. (Image: New York Public Library/Public Domain) I’m sold. But I’m not from Kansas—and, like so many aspirational developers, neither is Rishel. Even if flattening is the sincerest form of flattery, Dobson, Campbell, and the other real Kansans I talked to would be sad to lose their hills, which help them take advantage of the good parts of being on the level. From the top of Lawrence’s Mount Oread, for example, “the view reaches far enough to fade away,” says Stuhl. “It’s awe-inspiring to stand on top of one of our hills and see a squall line moving in,” adds Sam Huneke, a history student who grew up in the state. That is, until the mining machines roll by, bringing the future with them. Then, you’ll just want to get out of the way.

This article is over 7 years old Major rights holders claim search engines make it 'difficult' for people to find legal music and films online Google and Bing accused of directing users to illegal copies of music Google and other search engines "overwhelmingly" direct music fans to illegal copies of copyrighted tracks online, a coalition of entertainment industry groups has told the government. In a confidential document obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, lobbying groups for the major rights holders claimed Google and Microsoft's Bing are making it "much more difficult" for people to find legal music and films online. The private document, obtained by the free speech campaigners Open Rights Group and shared with the Guardian, urges the government to introduce a voluntary body that would remove rogue websites from internet search results. The proposals were made to the culture minister Ed Vaizey as part of a series of consultations on internet piracy between rights holders, search giants and the government in November last year. The nine-page document was submitted on behalf of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), the UK body for the music majors, the Motion Picture Association (MPA), the Premier League, the Publishers Association and the Pact, the film and TV independent producers' trade body. Privately, rights holders said there is a "spirit of optimism" between the entertainment groups and search engines as they attempt to usher in more legal media sites, including Google's own fledgling music service. Google has in the past year stepped up efforts to remove copyright-infringing content, launching a fast-track removal requests form and filtering terms "associated with infringement". However, the rights holders claim in the document that "as time goes on, the situation is getting worse rather than better". "Consumers rely on search engines to find and access entertainment content and they play a vital role in the UK digital economy," the rights holders state. "At present, consumer searching for digital copies of copyright entertainment content are directed overwhelmingly to illegal sites and services." The entertainment groups want Google to "continuously review key search words" and "effectively screen" mobile apps on Android smartphones in an effort to combat illicit sharing. The document claims that 16 of the first 20 Google search results for chart singles link to "known illegal sites", according to searches by the BPI in September. In an attempt to persuade the government to clamp down on search engines, the groups claim that 41% of Google's first-page results for bestselling books in April last year were "non-legal links" to websites. "Much of the illegal activity in the digital economy is facilitated and encouraged by money-making rogue sites," the document claimed. "Intermediaries, unwittingly or by wilfully turning a blind eye (or in some cases, by encouraging such activity), play a key role in enabling content theft and often even profit from it. Only a comprehensive approach can address this issue." The entertainment bodies call for search engines to: • Assign lower rankings to sites that "repeatedly" make available copyright-infringing material • Prioritise sites that "obtain certification as a licensed site" for music and film downloading • Stop indexing sites that are subject to court orders • Stop indexing "substantially infringing websites" • Improve "notice and takedown" system • Ensure that users are not directed to illicit filesharing sites through suggested search • Ensure search engines do not advertise around unlawful sites or sell keywords associated with piracy or sell mobile apps "which facilitate infringement" The chief executive of BPI, Geoff Taylor, said on Thursday: "The vast majority of consumers want search engines to direct them to legal sources of entertainment rather than the online black market. "As search engines roll out high-quality content services, like Google Music, we want to build a constructive partnership that supports a legal online economy. We hope that Google and other search engines will respond positively." A spokeswoman for the Motion Picture Association added: "If you look for film or music via a search engine you usually find websites providing access to pirated films or music at the top of the list of results. "This is confusing for consumers, damages the legal market and legitimises copyright theft. We are in dialogue with search engines, ISPs [internet service providers], advertising networks and payment processors about a code to deal with the escalating problem of online copyright theft which threatens the growth of the entire creative industries sector. This paper is a result of that dialogue and we appreciate government's continuing efforts to help bring about a more responsible internet". A spokesman for Google said: "Google takes the fight against online piracy very seriously. Last year, we removed over five million infringing items from Google Search. We have made industry-leading efforts in this field, investing over $50m (£32m) in fighting bad advertisements and over $30m on Content ID software, giving rights holders control over their YouTube content. "We continue to work in close partnership with rights holders to help them combat piracy and protect their property." Peter Bradwell, campaigner for the Open Rights Group, said the proposal contained "some dangerous ideas". He said: "It's another plan to take on far too much power over what we're allowed to look at and do online."

Less than three months ago, Facebook Live experienced its first verifiable viral hit when more than 800,000 people tuned in to watch two BuzzFeed employees burst a watermelon using only rubber bands. But explosive fruit was just the beginning. Now, Facebook has reportedly inked well over 100 deals with a wide array of partners ranging from digital publishing outfits to celebrities, 17 of which come with million-dollar price tags. Facebook Live, the live-video service that began rolling out to users in the fall of last year, is the centerpiece of C.E.O. Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for the future of Facebook. (Earlier this month, Facebook executive Nicola Mendelsohn predicted that within five years, the social network could be “all video.”) And paying high-profile content-creators to make video that people actually want to watch is the crux of that plan. According to a document obtained by The Wall Street Journal, Facebook will pay almost 140 parties to create live video for the burgeoning service. The list of partners includes a number of media companies, including CNN, The New York Times, Vox, Tastemade, Mashable, and The Huffington Post. (Condé Nast, Vanity Fair‘s parent company, has ongoing partnerships with Facebook that include a number of different business and revenue models.) Kevin Hart, Gordon Ramsay, Deepak Chopra, and Russell Wilson are among the celebrities that have signed on, the Journal reports. While the total price tag for the deals tops $50 million, the partnerships differ widely in value. Buzzfeed, which saw early success with its watermelon-exploding video, landed the biggest contract among its publishing competitors with a $3.05 million contract to create live video between March 2016 and March 2017. The New York Times nabbed second place, with a $3.03 million 12-month contract, and CNN rounded out the podium players with a $2.5 million deal, the Journal reports. The outlet did not report how much individual celebrities will pocket by partnering with Facebook for the initiative. Zuckerberg and friends are reportedly still figuring out how to monetize Facebook Live—pre-roll ads, presumably, are in our future—but by landing high-profile names to create its content, Facebook is undoubtedly one step closer to a sustainable live-video revenue model. During a Facebook town hall at the end of February, Zuckerberg said that live video was one of the things he was “most excited about.” This newest report makes it clear he sees it as a moneymaker, too.

0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr released a statement today criticizing the bungled police raid of the mayor’s home in Berwyn Heights, Maryland. He said that no knock raids are unconstitutional, and that law enforcement has become arrogant and less accountable. The case Barr is referring to involves a bungled raid on Mayor Cheye Calvo ‘s home that resulted in the mayor and his mother in law being hand cuffed and his two dogs killed. The mayor had been victimized by drug smugglers, but law enforcement never bothered to take the time to actually investigate and gather the facts. “Absent exigent circumstances, not present here, so-called no-knock raids are an affront to the Constitution. So is a shoot first, ask questions later philosophy by the police. Yet the Prince George’s police have done this before—last fall they invaded a house at the wrong address and shot the family dog. All Americans are at risk when the police behave this way. Just ask yourself what might happen if a suspicious package is delivered to your home and the cops bust in,” Barr said. His bigger point is that law enforcement needs to be able to do their job while protecting people’s liberties, “But there is an even larger point. Law enforcement agencies have become more arrogant and less accountable in cases other than those involving drugs. Most people are aware of well-publicized examples like Waco and Ruby Ridge, but similar abuses are common across the country, though they usually receive little or no public notice. We all want police to do their jobs well, but part of doing their job well is respecting the people’s constitutional liberties.” Barr knows what he is talking about. Before serving in the House of Representatives, he was a U.S. attorney, and before that he worked at the CIA. For lack of a better term, I think that some law enforcement agencies have gotten lazy. We see people getting shot or tasered too often without cause, but seems like if some law enforcement officers don’t want to deal with a situation, they skip right to using force. This attitude comes from the top down. It can be traced to the example set by the Bush administration after 9/11. This anything goes attitude needs to stop which is another reason why the neo-cons have to go. If you’re ready to read more from the unbossed and unbought Politicus team, sign up for our newsletter here! Email address: Leave this field empty if you're human:

Porter Airlines confirmed today it plans to buy up to 30 CS100 jets from Montreal-based Bombardier, which would expand the regional carrier's reach from coast to coast, and take direct aim at Air Canada and WestJet. "We believe it is time to spread our wings," president and CEO Bob Deluce said at a news conference at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, where Porter is based. "And so I present to you our vision for the future of Porter Airlines — a vision with service to destinations across North America, from Calgary and Vancouver, to Los Angeles, Miami and Orlando." The move pushes Porter into direct competition with Air Canada and WestJet as a national carrier, while setting up a potential political standoff over expansion of the island airport in downtown Toronto. The conditional deal is to buy 12 Bombardier CS100s, with options on 18 more. The deal also includes purchase rights for six of Bombardier's Q400 turboprop aircraft, currently the mainstay of the Porter fleet. The total purchase could reach $2.29 billion US if all the options and purchase rights are exercised. Delivery of the first jet, which has seating for 107 passengers, is expected in 2016. The conditional purchase agreement signed on Tuesday is a coup for Bombardier, and ushers in a change in Canadian aviation. That's because the CSeries jets can fly 5,400 km without refuelling, much farther than the current fleet of Q400 turboprop planes that Porter flies to connect 19 cities across Eastern Canada and the U.S. The airline said the expansion could mean 1,000 new employees, which would bring the total to 2,400. Potential price war Joseph D'Cruz, a University of Toronto business professor and aviation expert, said the move could be good news for consumers. The announcement could lead to a political dispute over the airport, which is near residents on the island and the city's heavily populated downtown. (Marivel Taruc/CBC) "It's going to be interesting to watch how WestJet and Air Canada react once Porter starts biting into their business," he told CBC News. "They're going to retaliate, and the only way they can retaliate is lower prices." "This may trigger a vicious price war," D'Cruz said. Air Canada said that before it takes a position on further investment at the island airport, it wants assurance that takeoff and landing slots will become available for other airlines that have been seeking increased access. Canada's largest airline currently has only enough landing and takeoff slots to offer service between Montreal and the airport on the Toronto waterfront. WestJet Airlines did not directly address Porter's plans, but said it remains focused on keeping its own business. "We expect competition to increase and are preparing accordingly," WestJet spokesman Robert Palmer said in a statement. Political dispute The announcement could lead to a political dispute over the airport, which is near residents on the island and the city's heavily populated downtown. The airline will seek permission to fly the long-range jets out of the island airport, where the runway would need to be extended into what is now water by 168 metres at each end. Jets are currently not allowed to fly out of the waterfront airport except under special circumstances, and any changes would need to be approved under the airport's three-way agreement between the City of Toronto, the federal government and Toronto Port Authority. The Toronto Port Authority said it wouldn't take any position on Porter's business plans. "The TPA will not consider any change of use to the airport until a determination is first made by the elected representatives on Toronto City Council regarding Porter's proposed changes to the 1983 Tripartite Agreement," it said in a news release. Deluce said Porter expects to have all the needed approvals within six months. Politicians who represent the area at the municipal and federal level were quick to say before the announcement that any plans to expand Toronto's island airport would be out of the question. "You can't pave the lake," Toronto Coun. Adam Vaughan told CBC News on Tuesday. Porter executives went out of their way Wednesday to underline how quiet the new Bombardier jets will be designed to be. "We knew that operating from a downtown urban airport would require us to be responsible operators and good neighbours, said Deluce, who launched the airline in 2006. "We believe that our track record of nearly seven years has shown that Porter has delivered on the promises we made when we announced plans to operate from this airport." "We believe the CS100 is the perfect aircraft for the next stage of our growth for many reasons, not the least of which is that it is the quietest commercial jet in production." Robert Kokonis, co-founder of airline consulting firm AirTrav, noted to CBC News that the thrust reverser required on landing may be louder than Deluce's promise of an engine that is "whisper" quiet. "The runway's not long enough and to get an agreement to lengthen the runway, they’re going to have to go before … three levels of government, not to mention community opposition, environmental studies, so there’s a fair degree of long shot in Bob Deluce’s plans for Porter today," said Kokonis, who also questioned how the expansion will be financed. In a separate interview with The Canadian Press, Kokonis noted that Porter's planes have been flying less full while load factors at WestJet and Air Canada have been improving. "In a zero sum game where they're all sort of chasing the same passenger, it does give one pause for concern that Porter might be struggling in some areas." Despite the expansion, Deluce said taking the privately held airline public and raising money through an initial public offering is not a priority right now. The company had planned to issue shares on the public markets in the past, but shelved them for various reasons. "We've not thought about an IPO in most recent times," Deluce said. "Sometime in the future it's a possibility."

The Vancouver Canucks, who bombed out at 28th overall and got wrecked by the draft lottery, are now in a position to fight for playoffs. With a game in hand over the eighth-place Calgary Flames and only one point back, all the critics who portrayed the Canucks as a directionless failure are being proved wrong: the Canucks are not a failure. USA Today projected the team would hit 65 points, while EA predicted even worse with 63 points in their season simulation. If the Canucks were to be truly that bad, they would have the lowest team points since Edmonton and Buffalo in 2014-15. But no – the Canucks started off the year 4-0-0, and are one of a few teams that have seven players with ten or more goals – Bo Horvat, who in his third season leads the team, has broken out into the next star, with 14 goals and 31 points in 48 games and an All Star Game Selection. Brandon Sutter, who was injured for the majority of last year, has 12, Henrik Sedin (congratulations on 1000 points!) has 11 along with brother Daniel, Sven Baertschi, and Markus Granlund (whose trade from Calgary for Hunter Shinkaruk drew heavy criticism). Summer free agent acquisition Loui Eriksson has 10 after a very slow start to the season. Alex Burrows, who was considered to be an overpaid buyout candidate, has worked himself onto a spot in the top 9 with Horvat and Baertschi and has seven goals. Ryan Miller has shown why he was signed to his contract. While he’s got a middling-but-decent 2.50 GAA and .919 sv%, he’s played well, stuck up for his team, and been a source of leadership in the dressing room. Troy Stecher, who played on the North Dakota team with Canuck prospect numero uno Brock Boeser, has shown incredible skill as a rookie defenseman coming straight out of college. His moves have left fans’ jaws agape and his work ethic has fans and management alike falling in love with him. Nikita Tryamkin, brought over from Russia at the end of the season in 2016, has not looked out of place, despite being held out of games early for being reportedly out of shape. He is constantly a source of physicality and solid puck movement (except when he ices the puck). Even Luca Sbisa has looked good this year – which is much-needed, given first pairing Alex Edler and Chris Tanev’s injuries. You’d think that injuries would stop the Canucks. It didn’t. Of course, there lies just under half a season left to play, and anything can happen. But despite injuries, doubting fans, and faithless media, they’ve managed to pull through pretty well and will find a way if their efforts toward playoffs are hampered. Advertisements

We are eight weeks into the season, and we only have three weeks left of the LCS regular season and fantasy. The pressure to win is increasing exponentially and decisions have more weight behind them now that the end is upon us. Week 8 Analysis Last week, I incorrectly predicted Millenium, Roccat, Dignitas, and Alliance. My data incorrectly predicted Roccat, Dignitas, CLG, and Gambit. I made the mistake of thinking that Mil was on a downswing, when in reality they were just being horribly inconsistent which they showed in their crushing victory over Alliance and their close game with CW. Alliance was the exact opposite: I thought that they were just having a fluke week on super week and that their games vs Roccat and Millenium would boost them back up. Instead, they went 0-2 and look extremely vulnerable for the first time this season. It seemed expected that Dig would at least have close games with LMQ and CLG, but they were crushed in both games and garnered less than half of what was expected of them. Roccat went 2-0 against SK and Alliance. CLG went 2-0 against TSM and Dig in crushing victories. Gambit swapped their roster around and not even NiQ could post a decent score this week. SK did much worse than expected this week, however, they were expected to do the worst, or the 2nd worst in each of their respective positions, so I would say that was still accurate. Overall, my data predictions were extremely accurate and fairly precise last week. I was 0.56% accurate, and +/- 9.53 points precise for both EU and NA last week. A lot of that deviation comes from EU where teams like Gambit, SK, and Roccat scored upwards of 30 points off from the predicted values. In fact, EU was +/- 11.51 points precise while NA was +/- 7.54 points precise. The good thing about EU is that it remains extremely accurate due to many games being stomps. When one team in EU scores over, another team will score just as much under the projection. I found that another good way to compare how well predictions worked is to rank all players based on their predictions, and then see where they ended up for their actual performance. For last week, the two tables are here: Projected Week 8 Actual Week 8 As you can see, even though teams like SK did much worse than predicted, they were still predicted to be some of the worst players going into week 8, and they ended in relatively the same spots. Week 9 Method Not many changes this week. The biggest change is that I am including the chart that ranks the players by their position which can be found directly below. And the points projected for each player (M3): Top Lane FNC SOAZ 42.61 points Fnatic is now #1 in EU by elo, and they have crushed their competition in recent weeks. They also play the two weakest teams in EU this week: Gambit and CW. I’m going to spoil the rest of this for you, Fnatic is #1 in every position, and they will all have the same reasoning as s0AZ. Start them. TSM Dyrus 33.67 points TSM is a strong team that struggles to consistently beat the top teams in NA. This week, they play LMQ and coL. That seems a little contradictory for them to do well this week, but TSM players average 14 points a game against LMQ even though they have not beaten LMQ. They also average 25 points against coL. So expect TSM to do well this week. Dyrus is the biggest risk of the entire TSM roster because he only averages 6.5 points a game against LMQ and about 18.5 points a game against coL. LMQ Ackerman 31.15 points Ackerman has been one of the best top laners throughout the split and he is lucky enough to be playing against TSM and CLG this week. Most teams score a lot of points for their top laners against CLG, and LMQ has yet to lose to TSM this split. If Ackerman performs to his average against these teams, he is in line to get 51 points, 31 from TSM and 20 from CLG. I would definitely start Ackerman. Jungle FNC Cyanide 40.78 points Fnatic player. See Soaz. See the past two weeks. TSM Amazing 39.47 points TSM plays coL and LMQ this week and both teams like to have games that either last extremely long or have a lot of kills. Amazing has 36 points on average from these teams, and his aggressive playstyle will be rewarded in these probably high-scoring games. Mil KottenX 32.52 points KottenX always plays well. He has had maybe one bad week this split, but he has consistently been one of the top performers on a team that goes for kills. Mil plays a struggling SK and a resurgent Roccat this week, so they might have issues, but I thought they would have issues last week and almost all of them were #1 in their respective positions. Mid FNC xPeke 48.48 points I tried warning you guys. Fnatic is #1 in every position, and I think those predictions are fair. Keep reading. TSM Bjergsen 44.61 points Oh, I forgot to mention, TSM is #2 in every position this week as well. Again, I think #2 is fair for all of them except for Dyrus, and entirely possible. Unless they give Vasilii Tristana. Then your fantasy points can RIP. All Froggen 41.99 points Even when most of Alliance underperformed last week, Froggen remained strong. Alliance has an easier schedule this week, and they will hopefully perform better than last week. I feel confident with Froggen being my #3 mid laner. ADC FNC Rekkles 54.72 points Even if FNC wasn’t all #1 right now, I think Rekkles would still be #1. Amazing player, team is playing better than ever, “easy” week; all of that means a lot of fantasy points. TSM WildTurtle 44.63 points TSM is 2nd again. WildTurtle has been playing amazingly ever since the casters started talking about him not having a game with more than 5 (or was it 7) kills in this split. I think the players just enjoy proving Jatt wrong and it is very likely that it can be an NA LCS game that they play amongst themselves. CLG Doublelift 41.69 points He’s in the number three position along with his trusty partner and the more attractive half of rush hour: Aphromoo. He plays LMQ and EG this week, and on average would score 40 points against those teams. EG has not looked like they have improved much since the last time CLG played them, and LMQ vs CLG is always a high-kill game due to both teams always trying to make plays to get back in the game. Support FNC Yellowstar 47.94 points Supports are very reliant on how well their team does. Fnatic is doing well. Yellowstar will do well. He has also played amazingly the past 2 weeks. Start him. TSM Gleeb 37.35 points TSM will probably do well. TSM likes to snowball games from kills. Kills mean assists. Assists mean free fantasy points for whoever started Gleeb. CLG Aphromoo 34.10 points APHROMOO! The community-titled “Best Player NA” has been playing outstanding recently. CLG has historically scored a lot of points against EG and LMQ, and I don’t see that slowing down anytime soon. I would start him, especially alongside his more attractive partner Doublelift. Teams Fnatic 34 points This is like the really bad “Knock Knock” joke involving bananas and an orange. Except there are no oranges to make me glad I didn’t say banana. Fnatic is number one, once again this week, and that’s all I have to say. Dignitas 30 points Dignitas has already started their typical end-season slide with none of their players performing well in the past couple of weeks and a severe lack of coordination. Also, none of their players are expected to be in the top 10 of their respective positions, so it is extremely unlikely for their team to do that much better than the players. They play CRS and EG this week so there is hope, but I find it unlikely. Alliance 30 points Hopefully Alliance can pull it together, but like Dig, they are 2-4 in their last two weeks. They have an easier schedule this week than they did last week, but if they are really slumping, that might not even help them. SHC and GMB are still LCS-level teams, so no win is free, especially with how Alliance has looked these past two weeks. Closing LCS is coming to a close soon, and that means Worlds is coming up. However, that also means that Fantasy will end until January of 2015 (unless Riot has fantasy Worlds with a draft for all the teams for the round robin stage of Worlds. Rito pls!). So far, I think that fantasy data not only has applications in predicting the outcomes of games and scores players will get each game, but that the data is also extremely useful in identifying strength of teams and analyzing their playstyle’s or where their weakest link is. So far, I only have one loss this season in fantasy due to Mil and Roc last week (I hate you Fridge) and I have really enjoyed doing these articles for you guys. I look forward to the next 3 weeks and hopefully the next time Fantasy LCS becomes available. Credit to /u/_Zaga_ and his site http://flcspro.com for compiling all data for me this week. P.S. Have some elo graphs of NA and EU! K = 45.

President Trump with Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price in the Oval Office. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP) Attorneys general from 15 states and the District of Columbia filed a motion Thursday to intervene in a long-running lawsuit over a core part of the Affordable Care Act. In their legal filing, the attorneys general say they can't trust the Trump administration to defend their interests, because health insurance for millions of Americans has become “little more than political bargaining chips” for the White House. The lawsuit is challenging how billions of dollars of federal payments were made to health insurers. Those payments are critical to the stability of the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, which are designed to help individuals buy government-subsidized health coverage. The attorneys general want to step in to defend the payments, saying there is a “sharp divide” between the administration's goals and those of states. For months, health insurance companies have been trying to get a solid answer from Congress and President Trump's White House on the future of the payments, called cost-sharing reductions, that help lower-income Americans afford their deductibles and co-payments. Their calls for certainty have grown increasingly urgent as they face deadlines to decide whether to offer plans in states and how much to charge. The lawsuit over the payments was originally brought by House Republicans against the Obama administration. House Republicans won the lawsuit, which was appealed. Now, it has been inherited by the Trump administration, which has been unclear about whether it will defend the payments. A status update on the case is due on Monday. Trump and Congress have sent mixed signals about whether the payments will continue on an almost weekly basis. [Health insurers asked the Trump administration for reassurance on Obamacare. They didn’t get it.] The repercussions of discontinuing the payments have been made clear by insurance executives, who warn that if the funding disappears, insurers could leave markets altogether or raise their premiums significantly. CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield, the largest insurer in the Mid-Atlantic, requested rate increases of more than 50 percent in Maryland's marketplaces, and chief executive Chet Burrell warned earlier this month that if cost-sharing reduction payments were to end, rates could increase by another 10 to 15 percentage points. Anthem chief executive Joseph Swedish said in an April earnings call that the company was filing its preliminary rates with states under the assumption the cost-sharing reductions would be made. If there isn't a commitment to make the payments, Swedish said the company would change its plans. “Such adjustments could include reducing service area participation, requesting additional rate increases, eliminating certain product offerings or exiting certain individual ACA-compliant market altogether,” Swedish said. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners sent a letter this week to senators and to White House budget director Mick Mulvaney stressing the importance of the payments. “This is not a theoretical argument — carriers have already left the individual market in several states, and too many counties have only one carrier remaining,” the association wrote to Mulvaney. “The one concern carriers consistently raise as they consider whether to participate and how much to charge in 2018 is the uncertainty surrounding the federal cost-sharing reduction payments.” The motion to intervene was filed by the attorneys general of New York and California, and was joined by Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia. “The President has increasingly made clear that he views decisions about providing access to health insurance for millions of Americans — including the decision whether to continue defending this appeal — as little more than political bargaining chips,” the attorneys general wrote in their motion to intervene in the case, saying they could not depend on the White House to represent states' interests. “The number of uninsured Americans would go back up, hurting vulnerable individuals and directly burdening the States,” they wrote. “The wrong decision could trigger the very systemwide 'death spirals' that central ACA features, such as stable financing, were designed to avoid.” Read More: The future of Obamacare will be written by insurers like this one Iowa Obamacare program on verge of collapse as congressional uncertainty takes its toll Free-standing ERs offer care without the wait. But patients can still pay $6,800 to treat a cut.

2 Journalists Killed During Live Broadcast In Virginia; Suspect Has Died Enlarge this image toggle caption DAVID MANNING/Reuters /Landov DAVID MANNING/Reuters /Landov (This post was last updated at 3:43 p.m. ET.) Two journalists for Virginia TV news station WDBJ were killed by a gunman Wednesday morning while they were broadcasting live at a waterfront shopping center about an hour southeast of Roanoke, Va. Reporter Alison Parker and photojournalist Adam Ward were doing a live report from Bridgewater Plaza in Moneta when a gunman opened fire, killing Parker and Ward and injuring Vicki Gardner, the head of a local Chamber of Commerce who was being interviewed. Gardner is now in stable condition, hospital officials say. A suspect in the shooting was quickly identified — in part because of video taken at the scene — as Vester Lee Flanagan, 41, a former reporter for the station who was also known as Bryce Williams. toggle caption Twitter Franklin County Sheriff Bill Overton says Flanagan has died. He had suffered a gunshot wound when he was taken into custody by Virginia State Police after a car chase that came hours after the shooting; authorities earlier said Flanagan was in critical condition. At a 2:15 p.m. news conference, Overton said that less than an hour earlier, Flanagan had "died at Fairfax Inova Hospital in Northern Virginia, as a result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound." In an earlier statement, Virginia State Police described how the shooting suspect had fled and eventually reached Interstate 66, with police in pursuit. The suspect refused to stop, ran off the road and crashed. When police approached the vehicle, they found he had suffered a "gunshot wound." The man, police said, was taken to a hospital with "life-threatening injuries." In an interview with CNN, Jeffrey A. Marks, WDBJ-TV's general manager, said Flanagan was hired as a reporter, but about two years ago he was fired. During a separate broadcast on his network, Marks said Flanagan had filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after he was fired. The station reports: "This happened during a live broadcast around 6:45 a.m. ... "Adam was 27-years-old. Alison just turned 24. "Both were from the WDBJ7 viewing area." Video shows the camera panning to Parker in the middle of an interview as the gunman opens fire. Parker can be heard screaming. The final image in the video shows the camera falling down and the feet of the presumed gunman walking out of the frame. Hours after the shooting, a video from the gunman's perspective was posted to Twitter and Facebook under the name Bryce Williams. It shows a gunman quietly walking up on the live broadcast, looking toward the photographer (whose back was turned) and then pointing his gun at Parker before opening fire. A man claiming to be Flanagan also sent a 23-page fax to ABC News, in which he said he had "been a human powder keg for a while" and took action after the Charleston, S.C., church shootings in June. In addition to the Franklin County Sheriff's Office, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have sent personnel from Roanoke. Update at 2:25 p.m. ET: Updates From News Conference Former WDBJ employee Vester Lee Flanagan was taken into police custody after his car crashed into the median on I-66 in Virginia. Franklin County Sheriff Bill Overton says Flanagan had switched cars, leaving his Ford Mustang at a Roanoke airport and driving away in a Chevrolet Sonic that he had rented before the attack. But the authorities tracked him as he drove up Interstate 81 and then onto I-66, and a police officer trailed him before activating her cruiser's emergency lights upon the arrival of backup. Overton says Flanagan died at 1:30 p.m. ET, after being taken to the hospital with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Update at 1:34 p.m. ET. A 'Senseless Tragedy': In a written statement, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said that he was "heartbroken over this morning's senseless tragedy." He said that as the state reflects on the shootings, residents should also begin thinking about how to prevent these kinds of things from happening. "Keeping guns out of the hands of people who would use them to harm our family, friends and loved ones is not a political issue; it is a matter of ensuring that more people can come home safely at the end of the day," McAuliffe said. "We cannot rest until we have done whatever it takes to rid our society of preventable gun violence that results in tragedies like the one we are enduring today." During his regular press briefing at the White House, Press Secretary Josh Earnest said this was yet another example of gun violence that has become prevalent. There are things that Congress can do, he said, to have a "tangible impact." Update at 12:12 p.m. ET. Suspect Injured?: Earlier today, WDBJ-TV, citing law enforcement officials, said the suspect had killed himself on Interstate 66 in Fauquier County. The station later retracted that report, saying Flanagan was injured but still alive and in critical condition. Update at 12:07 p.m. ET. Suspect Filed EEOC Complaint: On the same Twitter account that posted video of the shooting, Flanagan also made it clear that he was angry at the reporter and the photographer. He said he had filed a report with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Jeffrey A. Marks, WDBJ-TV's general manager, confirmed that Flanagan had filed that EEOC complaint. Citing confidentiality provisions, the EEOC said it could not comment. Update at 11:20 a.m. ET. Presumed Suspect Posts Video: The presumed suspect in the shooting of the two WDBJ journalists posted a video of the attack filmed from his vantage point to Twitter and Facebook. The video, which has since been taken down, shows the gunman walk up behind cameraman Adam Ward. Ward does not appear to be aware the gunman is there. As the cameraman pans to the left and the camera is pointed at reporter Alison Parker, the gunman raises a handgun and aims it at Parker,who also did not seem aware of the shooter's presence. The gunman fires at least six rounds. Parker runs out of the frame before the video goes black. The Twitter account has also been suspended. Update at 10:39 a.m. ET. Authorities Identify Suspect: CNN is reporting law enforcement authorities know the identity of the presumed gunman. And the network is reporting that the woman being interviewed in the video survived. "The woman being interviewed, Vicki Gardner, executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce, was shot in the back and is in surgery, said Barb Nocera, the chamber's special projects manager." The Stauton, Va., area News Leader is reporting:

Last month, the Seattle Parks Department ordered the destruction of a play area designed for special needs kids, claiming its four-foot rope ladder, tire swing, and "nest" made of rope and bike tires were "extreme dangers" and "hazardous conditions." That's an odd verdict: In 10 years of existence, no children were ever significantly injured on the play area equipment, according to Liz Bullard, who helped design the space. As she writes in Crosscut.com: These simple play features may seem ordinary, but...here children with cerebral palsy, autism and developmental delays are encouraged and assisted as needed to climb and swing alongside their typically developing peers. The joy is palpable. We complied with the order, but it has left a bitter taste in our mouths. Our kids have been robbed of the simple pleasure of climbing and swinging under a beautiful tree. The thing about kids with special needs is that they often have to spend a lot of time in less-than-fun institutions. Hospitals. Therapists' offices. Waiting rooms. The "Wild Zone," as the play area was called, was specifically "designed to provide relief from the highly controlled and often hyper-medicalized world our kids move in," writes Bullard. One mom of a child with special needs commented on a post about the city's order, "This is a travesty!! How dare they steal the only play space in the Greater Seattle area, let alone the NW that is dedicated to creating a healthy play space for special kids where they aren't judged by their lesser abilities." Wrote another mom: "The Play Garden is the best! My son attended preschool there for three years and I am so grateful for the Wild Zone. There was nothing dangerous about it. Nothing!" Ah, but when you're a bureaucrat and you live in the world of what if thinking, danger is everywhere. Just imagine, "what if someone got hurt?" Look at the world that way and no play area wil seem safe enough. This outlook seems to be sweeping Washington state. Recall that just a few weeks ago the Richland School District decided to phase out all swings because what if a child got hurt on them? Too bad the bureaucrats never consider the reverse: What if kids never get a chance to climb a ladder, or hang from the monkey bars? What if kids with special needs know that after their doctor's appointment they will have to go straight home, because there's no place left for them to play? At least they won't be exposed to the "extreme danger" of a tire swing. Related: "Little Girl's Playset Is in Her Own Backyard, City Wants It Destroyed Anyway"

Fact Buster Q: Does coffee make you dehydrated? A: If you drink coffee regularly and don't drink too much it shouldn't dehydrate you. Our expert: Dietitian Lisa Renn [Image source: Reuters | Mick Tsikas ] Have your say Have you found coffee can make you feel dehydrated? Conditions of Use Have you been told that you need to drink an extra glass of water for every cup of coffee or tea that you drink? For some time there has been a belief that drinking coffee and tea can make you dehydrated because the caffeine they contain has a diuretic effect. (A diuretic is a substance that causes your body to produce urine, and it has been suggested caffeine can do this because it increases blood flow through the kidneys.) But is there any evidence to show that your morning cuppa needs to be offset with a big glass of water? If you regularly enjoy a few cups of coffee or tea a day, then you can rest assured the moderate amount of caffeine they contain doesn't cause you to lose more fluid than you ingest, says Lisa Renn, accredited practising dietitian and spokesperson for the Dietitians Association of Australia. Nor will your cuppa be any more likely to send you off to the loo than any other drink. "There is evidence that caffeine in higher amounts acts as a diuretic in some people, but moderate intake is actually not that significant," Renn says. A recent UK study of regular male coffee drinkers found no difference in hydration levels between those who drank four 200ml cups of coffee a day and those who drank the same amount of water. Researchers measured the men's urine output over a 24-hour period and other hydration markers in their blood, and concluded moderate coffee intake provides similar hydrating qualities to water. While the study focused on the intake of coffee, those who drink tea can also take heart from the results as it contains similar amounts of caffeine to coffee. It's worth noting, the study involved men who were regular coffee drinkers – and it's been suggested coffee may have more of a diuretic effect on those who do not habitually consume caffeine because they haven't developed a tolerance to caffeine. But so far the evidence on this point isn't completely clear. How caffeine affects hydration One of the reasons that drinks containing caffeine, such as coffee, tea, chocolate, cola drinks and energy drinks, have been given such a bad rap over the years is because caffeine is a diuretic when consumed in large doses (more than 500mg). Diuretics make your body produce more urine, so not only do they have you running to the toilet more often, they also cause you to lose sodium and water. When you lose too much sodium and water you become dehydrated, and this can have an effect on a range of bodily functions – from temperature control to absorption of food. However, the amount of caffeine you get in a cuppa is unlikely to have these effects and it can actually contribute to your overall daily fluid intake. "If you have to have more than four cups of coffee a day you may see a diuretic effect from that, but if your intake is less, then from a dehydration view you're going to be okay," says Renn. Men's bodies need around 2.6 litres and women's around 2.1 litres of water a day, but this can be gleaned from a range of food and drinks other than water, including coffee and tea. "Certainly you can be interspersing coffees and waters throughout the day, so you might have a bottle of water with you and be sipping on that most of the time, and then you might have a coffee in your break times," Renn says. The good and bad sides of coffee It's worth noting there are also other side effects associated with caffeinated drinks, which include: rapid heart beat (palpitations) restlessness and excitability anxiety and irritability trembling hands sleeplessness. And if you are drinking coffees with lots of milk it may affect your weight. "Lattes and cappuccinos can make an excellent dairy-based or soy-based snack, but if you're having lots of those throughout the day, especially if you're trying to lose weight and having four milk coffees a day, it's going to impact on your calorie intake," Renn says. However, drinking coffee can also have a range of health benefits, and has been linked to decreased risk of some cancers, heart disease and type 2 diabetes. "Coffee is certainly not the evil we once thought it was, but it's that old adage of everything in moderation," says Renn. For more on caffeine, it's side effects and benefits see our Caffeine fact file.

This is why friends shouldn’t let friends drive drunk. New Jersey cops scored a drunk-driving hat trick when they busted a motorist for DUI, then pinched her two sloshed friends who separately drove to the police station to pick her up. It all started when a cop in Readington Township pulled over Carmen Reategui, 34, after he noticed her car swerving on Route 22 early one morning last week. Charged with DUI, she was taken to the town’s police station, where she called a friend to come and get her. But the friend wasn’t much help. Nina Petracca, 23, who drove down to the station, was filling out necessary paperwork when a cop noticed that she, too, seemed a little tipsy. She failed a sobriety test right in the station lobby and was charged with DUI. So Petracca, too, was slapped with a DUI charge, as well as a drug charge for Vicodin tablets found in her purse, police said. Both women then reached out to another friend, Ryan Hogan, who, like Petracca before him, raced down to the police station to help his friends out of a jam. But when he showed up, Police Sgt. Carlos Ferreiro thought he seemed off. “When I was outside talking to him he displayed signs of intoxication,” he said. Hogan also failed sobriety tests, police said. “They finally got a sober adult to come pick up all three of them,” Ferreiro said. “It’s the first time in nine years I’ve had something like this.” All three friends are scheduled to appear in court next month. Reategui vented about the ordeal on Facebook. “Just getting home,” she posted to her page on Dec. 16. “ABSOLUTELY THE WORST NIGHT OF MY F–KING LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Petracca “liked” her lockup pal’s comment. Later in the day she was wishing the whole thing had never happened, posting: “Heavy, heavy heart. Wish there was an undo button in life.”

Squeeze on consumer spending is the worst in peacetime for a century, new research shows Households are facing the most savage peacetime squeeze on consumer spending in almost 100 years. Figures show that only during the Second World War did spending suffer a deeper fall. Even the Great Depression saw nothing on this scale. Analysis by the independent Centre for Economics and Business Research shows an 8.4 per cent fall in real consumer spending per household between 2007 and the end of this year. The comparable figure for 1939-1945 was 14 per cent. Consumer spending: Only during the Second World War did it suffer a deeper fall Chief executive Douglas McWilliams said only in the slump of 1919-1920 was there possibly a peacetime drop on today’s scale. The extraordinary figures are published today ahead Tuesday’s expected downgrading of economic growth in the third quarter. The first estimate showed the economy roaring back to health, with growth of one per cent from July to September. But it is now thought that this may have exaggerated the recovery from recession and that the second estimate is likely to see the rate of expansion cut to 0.9 per cent, or lower. The psychological impact could be out of proportion to the size of the reduction, according to Howard Archer of independent consultancy IHS Global Insight. ‘The fact of no longer having a “one” in front of the decimal point and having a nought instead may weigh with some people,’ he said. ‘More worrying is the possibility of a flat or negative number in the fourth quarter. Much will hinge on spending over Christmas.’ He said higher than expected inflation may make people more concerned and this, in turn, could make worries about negative growth in the first quarter of next year into a self-fulfilling prophecy. A recession is defined as two successive quarters of negative growth, so shrinkage in this quarter and the next would plunge Britain into a slump for the third time in less than five years. Trevor Williams, chief economist at Lloyds Bank wholesale markets, said: ‘The second estimate could be lower, perhaps 0.9 per cent instead of one per cent. ‘As for the fourth quarter, I would expect that to be flat, or even slightly negative. But the prospects of a triple-dip recession are more remote. There is no obvious reason why we would get a negative reading in the first quarter of next year.’ Peter Dixon, strategist at Commerzbank, said: ‘There is a possibility of a negative fourth quarter. I am certainly not looking for anything stellar.’

On August 22, 2015, at approximately 07:13 a.m., the Coos Bay Police Department dispatch center received a 911 call pertaining to a reckless driver within the Empire District of the City of Coos Bay. An Oregon State Police Senior Trooper overheard the criminal call and responded to assist. The Trooper located the suspect vehicle unoccupied and parked on N. Morrison Street in the City of Coos Bay. The Trooper attempted to contact the registered owner of the vehicle at an adjacent residence to further the investigation into the Reckless Driving complaint. The Trooper attempted contact at the residence and was unable to contact the registered owner of the vehicle in question. The Trooper walked away from the residence and was conducting further follow up investigation and documenting suspect vehicle descriptions and identifiers as the vehicle was parked on the side of N. Morrison Street. As the Trooper was conducting the follow up investigation, an adult male identified as Michael SCOTT, age 25, from North Bend, came out of the residence from which the Trooper had previously attempted to contact the registered owner. SCOTT approached the suspect vehicle and the Trooper with a digital recording device in hand. SCOTT proceeded to climb up onto the hood of the car and then sit on the roof of the car with his legs positioned over the windshield, facing the Trooper who was positioned near the front of the suspect vehicle. The Trooper disengaged contact with SCOTT and walked back towards his patrol vehicle and ultimately re-entered the patrol vehicle. SCOTT dismounted from the suspect vehicle and followed the Trooper. SCOTT continued to advance towards the police vehicle, walking in front of it, on the passenger side, across the rear and then advancing towards the driver side. The Trooper exited his vehicle as SCOTT was approaching him from the rear. The Trooper was attempting to stop SCOTT from further interfering with his investigation of the original Reckless Driving Complaint. Coos Bay Police Department responded and arrived to assist with the investigation and further continuing the investigation into the Reckless Driving Complaint. The Oregon State Police is continuing the investigation into the incident with SCOTT and will be referring the completed criminal report to the Coos County District Attorney’s Office for consideration of the charges of: Interfering with a Police Officer and Disorderly Conduct II. Other criminal charges may be considered upon the review of the Coos County District Attorney.

Recently, education reporter Jay Mathews of The Washington Post has been writing about reading in the public schools, two of those pieces appearing here and here. One reason for doing so stems from a report issued by Renaissance Learning, a reading program that helps teachers and parents determine how well children understand the reading they do for homework and on their own. Because of the popularity of the program, Renaissance Learning has a vast database on the books kids in public schools from kindergarten to 12th Grade actually read voluntarily and for class. The most recent findings, for the 2008-09 school year, are now released in a paper entitled “What Kids Are Reading: The Book-Reading Habits of Students in American Schools” (here’s for the link). The list of most popular titles for Grades 9 through 12 show just how powerful the social element of reading is at that age. The top four spots (!) are held by one author, Stephanie Meyer — Twilight, New Moon, Breaking Dawn, and Eclipse. (At Border’s Books yesterday, I asked for the jigsaw puzzles and the man directed me to a rear wall, adding, “We only have six or seven puzzles, and nearly all of them are New Moon stuff.”) At No. 5 sits To Kill a Mockingbird, then comes Night (Wiesel), A Child Called “It” (Dave Pelzer), Of Mice and Men, Animal Farm, Brisingr (Christopher Paolini), Romeo and Juliet, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Giver, and seven more works of literature. That makes only two nonfiction works in the entire list, prompting Mathews to comment: “Educators say nonfiction is more difficult than fiction for students to comprehend. It requires more factual knowledge, beyond fiction’s simple truths of love, hate, passion and remorse. So we have a pathetic cycle. Students don’t know enough about the real world because they don’t read nonfiction and they can’t read nonfiction because they don’t know enough about the real world.” This dilemma is increasingly discussed in English Language Arts circles as more and more ELA standards are oriented toward abstract reading skills. Those standards will say things like “Students identify the main thesis in a text” and “Students detail the evidence used to support a contention in a text” — essential capacities, to be sure. To a decreasing degree, however, they ask for students to demonstrate specific “domain knowledge” such as “Students characterize, with examples, major periods of English and American literary history.” As a result, the knowledge deficits proceed, and so does poor achievement in the higher grades. Mathews again: “Educational theorist E.D. Hirsch Jr. insists this is what keeps many students from acquiring the communication skills they need for successful lives. “Language mastery is not some abstract skill,” he said in his latest book, The Making of Americans. “It depends on possessing broad general knowledge shared by other competent people within the language community.” Hirsch’s new book may be found here. Another voice on the issue is cognitive psychologist Dan Willingham, who contributes an introductory note to the reading report above. There, Willingham maintains: “Many people think of intelligence as comprised of mental skills that are independent of knowledge. That is, smart people think logically and analytically about problems, and they do that for pretty much any problem that comes along. If you’re a ‘good thinker’ you can apply those thinking skills quite broadly. This view is inaccurate. Thinking well is intertwined with knowledge.” Why so? Willingham: “We tend to think of reading as a skill that can be applied to any text. Indeed, describing a child as a good reader implies that she will be a good reader no matter what the content. That is true only for decoding — the process of turning written letters into sounds. Comprehending what you read depends heavily on what you already know about the topic. “Here’s why that’s true. We all omit information when we speak. For example, imagine I said to a friend “I ate pasta when I wore my new sweater. Now I’m going to have to throw it out.” I don’t elaborate that I spilled pasta sauce on my sweater, or that stains are hard to remove from some fabrics, or that these fabrics are often used to make sweaters, or that I am the sort of person who would throw out a sweater if it were stained. I assume that my friend knows all this, and can fill in the gaps. If I didn’t omit information that the listener already knows, speech would be very long and very boring.”

Poland will sign ACTA despite massive protests, Global Voices Online reports, citing Polish Minister of Administration and Digitisation Michal Boni. Unfortunately, it appears that the Polish minister does not shy away from telling his citizens blatant lies, in order to get the controversial ACTA agreement signed. According to Global Voices, Mr. Boni said in a radio interview in Polish that it was ”impossible not to sign the agreement, because it was too late: Poland joined the negotiation process in 2008 and all the other European countries have already signed it”. If Mr. Boni did in fact say this (I don’t speak Polish, so I cannot verify independently), it is an outright lie. Not a single one of the 27 EU Member States has signed the agreement yet. Poland is the first country scheduled to do so, tomorrow on January 26. The European Council of Ministers has taken a decision that it wants the EU to sign the agreement, but that is a completely different thing. ACTA is a so called ”mixed agreement”, that has to be signed by both the EU and each of the member states. On the national level, no member state has taken the formal decision to sign the agreement yet. Global Voices further reports that Mr. Boni said that Poland ”should attach a clause to the treaty that would show how we interpret these articles”. If it is true that he said this, it is also a direct lie. There is no way of attaching any further clauses to the ACTA agreement. The negotiations have been concluded, and the only thing left for the EU and the individual member states to do now is to say either ”yes” or ”no”. Being a minister in the Polish government, Mr. Boni would of course know this. It is apparent that the game of telling EU citizens whatever lies may be necessary to get the ACTA agreement signed has begun. Poland is only the first of 27 EU member states. Do not get surprised if the story repeats itself in your own country in the coming months.

While it might not have the name recognition of Rupp Arena or Cameron Indoor Stadium, the Thomas & Mack Center is one of college basketball’s most iconic arenas. It’s played host to the 1990 UNLV men’s national championship team, as well as other spectator events most college hoops’ venues could never dream of, from world class concerts, to championship boxing matches and, yes, the annual rodeo. Yet even by the insane standard that events in Vegas can provide, a recent drive up to Thomas & Mack tells you something else altogether: The arena is preparing for an event the likes of which neither UNLV nor Vegas has ever seen. On a calm afternoon, weeks before the start of basketball season, security is at an all-time high. Every car is funneled through the same entrance, and every driver is politely asked where they’re headed, who they’re there to see and the purpose of their visit. Parking is at a minimum, if available at all. Article continues below ... Clearly, this isn’t your normal protocol on a normal afternoon, and it isn’t until later that you realize this has nothing to do with UNLV hoops or some Rascal Flatts concert tour rolling through town. This isn’t about questioning visitors in an aggressive manor; instead, it's about protecting the future of the country. Literally. While the focus at the Thomas & Mack Center is usually on basketball this time of year, politics are taking center stage. The arena will host the third and final presidential debate on Wednesday night. But while the debate will bring the eyes of the world to Las Vegas, it has brought something else to UNLV basketball, the primary tenant of the Thomas & Mack Center: headaches. Lots and lots of headaches. “The first thing that came to mind was ‘that’s pretty cool,’ the national attention that it will bring to the Thomas & Mack and the university” new UNLV head coach Marvin Menzies said. “But then the second thought was ‘wow, that’s going to be a logistical nightmare.’” Admittedly, the debate has been a logistical nightmare for just about everyone on UNLV’s campus, and very likely for the entire city of Las Vegas in recent days. However, it’s taken an especially large toll on the UNLV basketball team because its offices are located in the Thomas & Mack and its practice facility is located right next door at the Mendenhall Center. To prepare for the debate and to make sure the entire surrounding area is completely secure, the Runnin’ Rebels hoops team was forced to leave its offices last Friday and won't be able to return until Thursday morning. Coaches have been put in temporary offices alongside other coaches in other sports, while practices have taken place at an intramural gym across campus. When players, coaches and administrators left the facility last week, they were forced to bring anything with them they could possibly need for six days, knowing that once they exited they wouldn’t be allowed back in. “There’s a long list of things,” Menzies said. “We’ll need to bring basketball equipment and pads and balls and things of that nature. And then your files, records, recruiting, things of that nature. [Thankfully] in this day and age, technology is so advanced there’s a lot of things that we will work off of that will be off our laptops that we will be able to access.” The situation is unique and could be especially troublesome for this particular UNLV squad. Menzies is in his first year as head coach after being hired in late April, and after bringing in nine new players this offseason (and returning just four from last year’s squad), there is a major learning curve for everyone. Players are still not only getting to know the coaches (and vice-versa), but they’re also getting to know each other. For most coaches, that alone would be a nightmare. But then consider that precious time and effort in the preseason has been dedicated to such trivial matters as “where will practice be today” and “where will my office be for the next six days.” However, instead of looking at this situation as a negative, Menzies has turned it into a positive. He will be able to see how his young team deals with a tiny bit of adversity. And it will also give them a chance to grow together as a group. “Getting your kids ready to handle change because change is coming,” Menzies said. “Whether you’re going on the road to travel, whether you’re out because of an electrical outage. It gives your kids an opportunity to handle change. I think it can actually be beneficial depending on how you look at it and how you handle it.” And when discussing the “big picture” of the debate, Menzies takes things one step further. After all, is it really a bad thing to alter a couple practices when the eyes of an entire nation will be on your school and campus? Could it possibly be a negative to have an event in your home arena that required over 700 media credentials and will bring a reported $85 million in free advertising to your school? It’s one of the biggest positives any school could ask for. “Let’s face it, this is a national branding for the university,” Menzies said. “[This is a national branding opportunity for] the Thomas & Mack.” And most important, it’s a teaching moment for Menzies and his staff. Being a college basketball coach isn’t just about X’s and O’s, but about helping boys become men. It’s about teaching them that life is bigger than basketball, and that it’s important to look beyond just the stat sheets and box scores to other important things in life. That’s especially true as we enter one of the most heated and controversial elections ever. “I think we’ve used it as an observation to talk a little bit about the privilege to be able to vote,” Menzies said. “Being to see all the pomp and circumstance that goes with the debate, it makes it a little more real for the guys. “It is [bigger than sports],” he said. “The magnitude of this particular debate, along with that it’s just such a dynamic event in and of itself. So to have it at your university, I think that’s a cool thing. It’s a good thing.” Even if it does force you to move a practice or two.

After a Palestinian researcher was denied a bug bounty by Facebook, Marc Maiffret, CTO of BeyondTrust, kicked off a crowd-sourced fund yesterday to come up with a reward. The researcher, Khalil Shreateh, expressed his gratitude today to Maiffret and others who have contributed to the fund. “Thank you so much. I never imagined what they will do for me,” Shreateh said in a telephone interview. Seventy-nine people have contributed nearly $9,000 in the last 24 hours to an account that will be handed over to Shreateh once it reaches the goal of $10,000. Maiffret seeded the fund with $3,000 of his own money after appearing on CNN to talk about the Facebook vulnerability that Shreateh found. Earlier this month Shreateh reported a vulnerability to Facebook’s bug bounty program, saying that he had found a way to post content to any user’s timeline, even when not on a victim’s friends list. Facebook rebuffed him in return emails and ultimately claimed his discovery wasn’t a bug. Frustrated, Shreateh took matters into his own hands and planted a message on CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook timeline. That got the attention of Facebook’s security engineers, who quickly locked Shreateh out of his account. After restoring his access, Facebook said it would not pay him a bounty. “The more important issue here is with how the bug was demonstrated using the accounts of real people without their permission,” said Facebook software engineer Matt Jones in a Sunday entry on Hacker News. “Exploiting bugs to impact real users is not acceptable behavior for a white hat.” Jones did acknowledge that Facebook should have asked Shreateh for more information before dismissing his report, but he also ticked off a list of reasons, including the fact that Facebook receives “hundreds of reports each day” and the lack of detailed proof in Shreateh’s original report. He also intimated that Shreateh’s poor English skills had been a problem. In an interview on CNN Monday, Maiffret took exception to Facebook’s decision not to reward Shreateh. “Ultimately, he helped kill a bug that could have been used by pretty bad guys out there to do things against Facebook users,” said Maiffret. “Ultimately, he did a great thing and I don’t think that should be lost in all this.” The vulnerability was certainly worth money to criminals, Maiffret asserted. “It would have been something that was very useful to folks in the underground to be able to post different content on celebrity sites or whatever it might have been, to be able to lure people to websites that would then attack them,” he said. “With the nature of the severity, it would be good for Facebook to pay the guy.” During the interview, Maiffret also said he would pay Shreateh himself if Facebook would not. “If Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t have the $2,000 to set this guy on the right path, if he contacts me I’d be happy to do it personally,” Maiffret said. Zuckerberg has the $2,000: In July, the CEO’s net worth was estimated by Forbes at $16.1 billion, or nearly $3 billion more than in March. Within minutes of Maiffret’s move to fund a bounty, others began to pitch money into the pot. Firas Bushnaq, who co-founded eEye Digital Security with Maiffret in 1998, also contributed $3,000. “This was a one-off in the sense that I just wanted to do something cool for the guy,” said Maiffret in an interview today. “I want to inspire the technology companies to pay attention [to researchers] a little bit more, and for researchers to do their part, too. It was much more for an awareness thing for me.” Maiffret, a high-school drop-out and self-proclaimed hacker when he was younger, is one of the country’s best-known security researchers, having founded eEye when he was a teenager. Among his notable finds was the notorious “Code Red” worm that plagued Microsoft’s IIS Server in mid-2001. “Before the [CNN] interview, I was watching television, and it had all the news about Egypt,” said Maiffret today. “It felt weird, that we were going to talk about something so small in a way, and I wondered what I could do to make it better. The point is, even with an old broken laptop and the Internet you can teach yourself and take the right path.” Today Shreateh expressed his gratitude. “I appreciate it, and my best wishes to everyone out there,” said Shreateh. Shreateh, who lists himself as unemployed on his Facebook page, said he has received job offers in the security business, but has not yet accepted one. When asked what he might do with the $10,000, Shreateh said, “It’s not in my pocket yet.” Maiffret intends it will soon be.

55User Rating: 5 out of 5 Review title of Deanne Thank you for still giving users time with this app (for PC): While it's a decent bookmarking alternative, I dislike the layout and navigation. I'm disappointed that I can't import it into Edge, but it's understandable considering the circumstances. What I found insulting and misleading was the solution: open each link in Edge, one by one, save. It is the solution but it was poorly executed. Moving on, Importing the links as favorites and then manually/optionally saving it within the browser is clearly a better alternative. Ideally, I'd use Reading List as my default bookmarking as it appears to sync seamlessly. Edge is rather limited at this early stage of development. On that note, backing up and exporting favorites in Edge would be nice. (WP8.1) I like using this app on my phone. One request: Disable saving duplicates, if possible. Thank you. via WP10: When I wiped my PC's hard drive I assumed I'd lose my favorites saved to Edge. I was wrong. Importing Reading List into Edge also changed awhile ago. Thank you very much.

Most Russians acknowledge that the country is facing a potentially lengthy economic crisis, but at the same time don’t expect to suffer any personal consequences such as redundancy or delays in salary payment in the near future as a result. The latest poll conducted by the independent public opinion agency Levada Center in mid-September showed that 82 percent of Russians currently agree with the statement that their country’s economy is in decline or stagnation. When a similar poll was held in 2014 only 61 percent of respondents shared this opinion. A quarter of Russians polled said they expected the current crisis to be long-term, compared to just 16 percent two years back. Around a fifth – 21 percent – said they expected it to end no sooner than in two years. READ MORE: 80% of Russians would not join protests – poll shows At the same time, those questioned were mostly optimistic about their own perspectives amid a stagnating economy. Just under half – 49 percent – were confident that they and their family members would not experience delays in receiving wages, while 24 percent admitted that such a scenario was possible and 17 percent confessed that they had already experienced this. Forty-four percent of respondents said they did not expect to lose their jobs in connection with the ongoing crisis. Just under a third – 28 percent – said that this was possible and 14 percent answered that they knew about ongoing job cuts from personal experience. Deputy director of the Levada Center Aleksey Grazhdankin explained the results of the poll by the fact that people compare the current economic difficulties with the much worse crisis of 1998. “Only a sharp fall in living standards can really affect public opinion. People tend to adapt to smaller deviations.” Researcher Leontiy Byzov from the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Sociology institute said in comments with Kommersant daily that the picture revealed by the poll could be explained by the fact that the average Russian thought that the economic crisis was imposed by hostile forces from abroad and therefore could not be really deep or serious. “Russians consider the current problems to be provoked by foreign-based ‘enemies of the people.’ They do not expect any cuts in their wages because they fully trust the authorities not to allow this,” he said. Similar research conducted by the state-run agency VTSION in January this year showed that about 62 percent of Russians saw the economic situation as normal, but 52 percent expect the crisis to deepen in the future. READ MORE: Citizens see situation in Russia as ‘normal’ but expect crisis to deepen, poll shows In September Levada pollsters released the results of research that showed that over 80 percent of Russians are currently unwilling to participate in mass protests over political or economic issues. Only 18 percent allowed for the very possibility of protests caused by decreases in living standards, and only 6 percent said that they would consider taking part in such protests if they happened.

ONE man is dead and fourteen others have been hospitalised with suspected drug overdoses at a music festival in Penrith, Sydney yesterday. The 23-year-old deceased reveller travelled to the Defqon.1 festival by car with several friends. Just before midday he was taken in to the festival's medical tent, where his condition quickly deteriorated and he suffered several seizures, police say. An ambulance was then called and took the man to Nepean Hospital where he was resuscitated numerous times after multiple cardiac arrests. He died at 10.30pm last night. A police spokesman told The Daily Telegraph they were unsure what substance the man had consumed. "That information is being prepared for the coroner," he said. "It is certainly a warning to others out there if it was an overdose, which is what it is looking like." Over 18,000 people descended on the Sydney International Regatta Centre yesterday to listen to a range of hardstyle dance music. A police operation with drug dogs nabbed 87 partygoers, three for public order offences and the remainder for drug offences. An attendee took to Twitter saying the death may have been associated with a bad batch of ecstasy pills. Police have not confirmed this allegation. Defqon. 1 Festival is an annual music festival held in the Netherlands and Australia. It was founded in 2003 by festival organiser Q-dance and plays mostly hardstyle and related genres such as hardcore techno, jumpstyle and hard trance. Many prominent hardstyle and dubstyle artists perform there annually. Police have announced a media conference regarding the man's death and the large number of arrests made at the event for this afternoon. They also warned users of illegal drugs to be aware that while they may believe they are purchasing one drug they may get something completely different. "People who attend dance parties and music festivals need to act with caution when considering taking an illicit drug. The effects of some of the more popular drugs at these venues such as MDMA (ecstasy) can cause overheating and dehydration with sometimes fatal consequences," Penrith Local Area Command Crime Manager Detective Inspector Grant Healey warned. It was the fifth year for the event described as being for "hard dance enthusiasts" with tickets for the Sydney International Regatta Centre event costing as much as $235. On its website organisers stress "This festival is produced to give everyone a positive and safe experience. Q-dance maintains a zero tolerance drug policy. There will be a strong police presence at the event." Headline acts include Coone, Gunz for Hire, Frontliner and Brennan Heart.

On a third-down in 11-on-11 scrimmage, he zoomed past starting left tackle Jake Matthews and sacked quarterback Matt Ryan. Well, he tagged him down, since they don’t tackle to the ground anymore in NFL practices. But that’s a practice sack and the Falcons are hoping their first-round pick, who has recovered from offseason shoulder surgery, has plenty of real sacks in his 6-foot, 2-inch and 250-pound frame. “It feels great,” McKinley said after the morning practice. “I’m back to football, back to what I love doing.” McKinley was selected 26th overall in the 2017 draft. He had surgery to repair a torn labrum and glenoid socket in his right shoulder on March 6. He was cleared before training camp, but Falcons coach Dan Quinn wanted to ease him back into practice by letting McKinley participate in individual drills. “It was our first chance getting some reps for Takk Mckinley,” Quinn said. “He was on the plan that (Adrian) Clayborn did last week. He did the individual and then some team. He worked some team today.” McKinley won over the fans with a passionate speech on draft night about how he wanted to honor his grand mother who helped to raise him. He was so emotional that he let loose with a few expletives. McKinley was much more composed after his first practice, i in which he was able to showcase his skills in team and one-on-one drills. “Just being back on the field,” Quinn said. “For him, it was good to be back with the guys, his teammates and getting in the huddle and playing. He hasn’t done that for awhile.” After practice, McKinley had a long session with defensive line coach Bryant Young. “We are just getting started with him,” Quinn said. “We are anxious to put the work in over the next month.” While out and not allowed to attend OTAs or minicamp because of the NFL academic rules for schools on the quarter system, McKinley picked up the defensive scheme during his Facetime sessions with Young. “Between him and Bryant Young, they did a good job together,” Quinn said. “They had to put the work in. That was his way to show I’m committed and I’m in….. although there was some frustration about (not) playing , (he) could still do (his) part from a scheme standpoint…I have to commend him for putting in the work over the summer to get ready.” McKinley admitted that he had some butterflies in his stomach. “I was nervous,” McKinley said. “It was my first time in pads since November. To be able to go out there and play football again, felt real good.” It wasn’t a perfect first practice. “The biggest thing is to play fast,” McKinley said. “I know coming out as a rookie that I’ll make a few mistakes, but as long as I’m playing fast and hustling to the ball, I’ll be good.” McKinley impressed his teammates. “He looked good,” linebacker Kemal Ishmael said. “He went out there and did a good job. He went out there and played well.” McKinley felt well about how he performed. “Those were my first one-on-ones,” McKinley said. “I was just trying to go with a bull rush and try to show of my strength and stuff like that. To be honest that might be my only rush so far just to kind of help the shoulder feel better.” McKinley’s knows there will be some adjustments to the NFL game. “The tackles are bigger, stronger and more athletic,” McKinley said. “They are faster. The game is faster. The quarterbacks …you might have a freshman quarterback who takes his time at the line (in college), but in practice you are going against Matt Ryan and it’s quick. In the NFL you’ve got Cam (Newton) and (Tom) Brady and whoever else. The games will go by much faster. It’s all about knowing your plays, getting lined up and going.” He said the shoulder felt fine. “I put in so much effort since I had surgery on March 6 over the past summer and spring to be where I’m at right now,” McKinley said. “My goal was to get one percent better each day. There were no days off, Mondays through Fridays and on Saturdays, I’d come in for treatment, just trying to get right. “I’ve got the green light, so I’m going out there…whenever they put me out there, I’m just going as hard as I can.” McKinley played the past two seasons at UCLA with the injured shoulder. “So, now that it’ fit I feel like I can just throw it all over the place,” McKinley said. “Before it wasn’t fit, I was being real careful and real hesitate. Now, that it’s fit, that’s the doctor’s job to worry about my shoulder. My job is to go out here and go as hard as I can.”

How to choose the right IT Ops certs to stay competitive Mention certifications in the IT world and you find three camps. There are those who are all for them, which generally includes those who create, administer, and grant certified status. There are many who say that certification is a fool's game because it rests on rote memorization and doesn't really prove ability. And then there those who don't care about the debate—they just want to remain employable. This article is for you. As the computing world shifts and moves ever faster toward greater virtualization, cloud computing, and software-defined everything, you need new skills and knowledge to stay ahead and remain competitive. So here's an overview of infrastructure-related certifications and the specific areas that you should consider. The State of Analytics in IT Operations GET WHITE PAPER Certification pros and cons Not everyone likes the idea of certification. Many say certifications show that someone passed a series of tests, not that he or she is good at actually doing the work of an IT infrastructure professional. The post-nominal letters literally spelling out a certification also don't address someone's work ethic, compatibility with a given corporate culture, inventiveness, or other characteristics that are critical in hiring. It's a good point. Memorizing all the possible settings for a piece of hardware or software may save some time but fails to determine whether someone would be a good infrastructure employee. Among the arguments for gaining certifications, the biggest is the HR department angle. The dynamics of hiring employees are difficult at many companies. Hiring managers tell HR professionals the characteristics they want in candidates for a given position. The HR staff looks for all the specific requirements the hiring managers mentioned, including certifications, for two reasons. One reason is that no one in corporate America wants to be caught making a blatant mistake. If HR focuses on what the manager wanted, their actions are safe. Another reason is the ability to reject candidates. This isn't a game or hard-heartedness so much as an action of self-preservation. An ad could bring in hundreds of résumés, and someone has to go through them. If they make certifications a requirement, then they can eliminate anyone who doesn't meet the profile. Of course, there will be some highly experienced people who could perform the job without having the certification, but the HR staff won't have the expertise to tell, and they don't want to pass along unknown quantities and turn the interview stage into a wild goose chase. Even if it seems unfair or narrow, you'll likely need certifications to safeguard your future as an infrastructure professional who has access to the widest job market. [ Webinar: 5 Things Every SecOps Team Wants Their NetOps Team to Know ] Future-proofing your certifications portfolio The question is what types of certifications you will need in this changing realm of computing and infrastructure. Paradoxically, that means starting with what you need for traditional computing. New approaches to computing don't eradicate all the investment in hardware and software that has taken place over the years. There's still a need for data centers at many companies, whether it's because of particularly strong security or regulatory requirements. Companies need networks, otherwise there's no way to connect to a cloud, or anything else. But now there are multiple cloud services in use. Increasingly, aspects of infrastructure are falling into the "software-defined" camp, so much of the work is now done through scripting and not necessarily changing cabling among sets of equipment. Automation is decreasing the time it takes to deploy and reconfigure resources while also reducing the number of infrastructure professionals that may be needed by a company, which means that greater job safety comes with knowing how to create automation, not performing manual steps. "In these new areas, certifications are becoming more and more important," said Bhaskar Ghosh, group chief executive of Accenture Technology Services. "We believe people need to change their skill sets and stay relevant." For example, his company has spent $841 million on skill development for people across different skill areas, including certification and training. And then there is the issue of being able to migrate among different career options. "You don't want to box in," said P.K. Agarwal, regional dean and CEO of Northeastern University-Silicon Valley. "Everything is moving fast. What if this brand X is the darling tomorrow? I like the idea of certifications that also say you understand this industry and the subject of cloud." Choosing the 'right' certifications But, still, what certifications should you have? Ultimately, this is a matter of personal preference and your own career strategy. Certifications can become a time sink. You could pile one on after another until you retire, but it's not as though they are free to pick up. Part of your decision is recognizing that there are two types of certifications. One is a more general type that says you are knowledgeable in a specific area of infrastructure. The tests check for skills that work independent of specific vendors, which is important. Computing is frequently heterogeneous. Then there are the vendor-specific certifications, created and administered by the vendors themselves. Often, they can be self-serving. "Every vendor is going to find a way to keep you as a captive customer so you cannot leave them," Agarwal said. Ones with greater market share—Cisco in networking is a great example—want to keep professionals close at hand because those are the people who have a lot of influence in what equipment and software companies will purchase going forward. But the certifications continue to expand, making decisions difficult. "There are nine CCNA exams [now]," said Kimberley Parsons Trommler, now a product evangelist but formerly a senior systems engineer also involved in certification and training for Paessler, a provider of network and IT monitoring products. "It makes it very difficult for someone just starting out to know what they should do. And it makes it complicated for the employer. They probably need routing and switching and security, but people applying will probably have only one of those. Which is more relevant to the position they're trying to fill?" What if you want to keep your options open and be able to work for a company that uses networking equipment from a different vendor—for example, Jupiter or Brocade? Trying to cover all possibilities is wildly impractical. There are also entirely new types of certifications coming out that you may need to consider, even though they initially don't seem to be about infrastructure. "As we move toward software-defined everything, the capabilities that companies require are more aligned with dev practices and less aligned with operational practices," said Chris Ciborowski, CEO of Nebulaworks. And yet developers don't understand all the needs of deployment at scale. "If you're going to be a scripting or tool developer, you have to understand those things and translate the tools and monitoring solutions the developers need to use," he said. For example, Jenkins is a popular open-source continuous integration automation tool that can merge all development work into a mainline body of code. CloudBees offers a platform-as-a-service delivery of Jenkins and created the first certification for the technology. "Some products are so important for the market that it means something for them to be certified," said Francois Dechery, CloudBees' vice president of customer success. "You cannot be certified on our certification without being knowledgeable and having hands-on experience with Jenkins." Then there are technologies that may not currently have certifications but might soon. Docker, for example, automates application deployment inside of software containers in a virtual hosting environment. Developing your certification strategy: Seek balance In short, this is a game with a bewildering number of choices and high personal stakes. Your decisions have to depend on developing a personal strategy in the context of technology and market trends. However, here are some principles that will come into play: You need a balance between vendor-specific certifications and those that cover concepts in a vendor-neutral way. Another balance you need is between proven areas that have become a baseline requirement for many employers and those that represent the future and can act as competitive differentiation in the market. A third type of balance to seek is across the spectrum of resource types. You're looking at your future as an infrastructure pro, so be sure you can navigate from an in-house data center, across whatever network architecture you might face, to a cloud, and then across cloud services if necessary. Remember that software increasingly controls configuration of infrastructure hardware, including virtual resources, so don't neglect important development skills. (Check out my guide to coding bootcamps.) What follows are some of the top certification categories for the expanding concept of infrastructure along with specific ones for in-demand technologies. Popularity was largely the driving factor in choosing specific certifications, with more advanced versions of certification taking precedence over lower-level ones. However, remember that a less-sought certification can still be the difference between an interview invitation and radio silence on the company's part if that business has standardized on a given vendor's technology. Also remember that a given certification may require that a candidate has previously passed other specific tests. Prices are in US dollars; testing costs in other countries may vary. Cloud certifications Cloud is the future of computing—not all computing, but so much that you won't be able to avoid it. Certification: AWS Certified Solution Architect - Professional (AWS-CSA) Vendor: Amazon Structure: Multiple-choice and multiple-answer questions in a 170-minute exam available in English or Japanese. Amazon sets passing scores by statistical analysis and does not make those scores public. Recertification: Two years Cost: Practice exam, $40. Exam, $300 Description: Shows advanced skills and experience designing distributed applications and systems on Amazon's AWS cloud platform. Should have the AWS-CSA - Associate certification and at least two years of hands-on experience designing and deploying cloud architecture. Understand best practices on design across applications and projects. Certification: CompTIA Cloud+ Vendor: CompTIA Structure: Ninety-minute test with 100 multiple-choice questions. Passing score is 750 on a 100-to-900 scale. Recertification: Three years Cost: $285 Description: Shows vendor-neutral expertise in implementing and maintaining cloud services. "[C]overs competency in cloud models, virtualization, infrastructure, security, resource management and business continuity." Should have two to three years of networking, storage, or IT data center administration and be familiar with any hypervisor technology. Certification: MCSD: Azure Solutions Architect Vendor: Microsoft Structure: A series of three tests. An exam can contain any of a number of question types, including short answer, multiple choice, case studies, and more. Microsoft regularly introduces new testing techniques and updates content. Recertification: Two years Cost: $495 (three tests, $165 each) Description: Certifies the ability to manage the "full breadth of architecting, developing, and administering Azure solutions." Certification: MCSE: Private Cloud Vendor: Microsoft Structure: A series of five tests. An exam can contain any of a number of question types, including short answer, multiple choice, case studies, and more. Microsoft regularly introduces new testing techniques and updates content. Recertification: Three years Cost: $825 (five tests, $165 each) Description: Certifies that the person can manage and implement Microsoft private cloud computing technologies. Certification: Certified OpenStack Administrator (COA) Vendor: OpenStack Foundation Structure: A hands-on, 2.5-hour test. Candidates must provide own hardware running a Chrome or Chromium browser and should have at least six months of OpenStack experience. Recertification: Three years Cost: $300 Description: Demonstrates that a person who passes "has the skills required to provide day-to-day operation and management of an OpenStack cloud." Data center Even with companies taking advantage of public clouds, there are still data centers for processes considered mission-critical or too sensitive to run on shared services. Certification: MCSE: Server Infrastructure Vendor: Microsoft Structure: A series of five tests. An exam can contain any of a number of question types, including short answer, multiple choice, case studies, and more. Microsoft regularly introduces new testing techniques and updates content. Recertification: Three years Cost: $825 (five tests, $165 each) Description: Holder has the skills "to run a highly efficient and modern data center, with expertise in identity management, systems management, virtualization, storage, and networking." Certification: Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) Vendor: Red Hat Structure: Two tests that are hands-on, practical exams. Recertification: Generally three years, but requirements can change depending on version of Red Hat used in original certification and current version. Cost: $800 (two tests, $400 each) Description: Highest level of Red Hat certification. Certification: CompTIA Server+ Vendor: CompTIA Structure: Ninety-minute test with 100 multiple-choice questions. Passing score is 750 on a 100-to-900 scale. Recertification: No required recertification. Cost: $285 Description: Addresses such topics as system hardware and software, disaster recovery, configuration, documentation, best practices, and troubleshooting. Certification: Data Center Design Consultant (DCDC) Vendor: BICSI Structure: Two-hour exam with 100 multiple-choice questions. Recertification: Three years Cost: $645 for non-members for application and exam fees ($395 for members) Description: Covers mechanical, electrical, and telecommunications systems in addition to data center requirements, including reliability, security, and building requirements. Network certifications You have to tie together various parts of a company's infrastructure, and that requires networking. Certification: Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) Vendor: Cisco Structure: Two-hour written exam (between 90 and 110 questions) and eight-hour practical exam. Recertification: Two years Cost: $2,000 (written exam, $400; practical exam, $1,600) Description: Demonstration of wide-ranging and high-level skills in all aspects of network engineering. Multiple specialty variations are available. Certification: Juniper Networks Certified Expert Enterprise Routing and Switching (JNCIE-ENT) Vendor: Juniper Structure: Hands-on practical exam. Recertification: Three years Cost: $300 Description: Requires JNCIP-ENT certification as a prerequisite. Designed to "validate the networking professionals’ ability to deploy, configure, manage and troubleshoot Junos-based enterprise routing and switching platforms." Certification: CompTIA Network+ Vendor: CompTIA Structure: Ninety-minute test with maximum of 90 multiple-choice questions, drag-and-drops, and performance-based assessment. Passing score is 720 on a 100-to-900 scale. Recertification: No required recertification. Cost: $285 Description: Examines the "the essential knowledge and skills needed to confidently design, configure, manage and troubleshoot any wired and wireless networks." Requires a CompTIA A+ certification and nine months of networking experience. Virtualization certifications Server and desktop virtualization have become popular ways to centralize administrative control of resources. Certification: VMware Certified Professional 6 – Data Center Virtualization (VCP6-DCV) Vendor: VMware Structure: Depends on background. If you are new to VMware certification, you would need to attend a training course and pass two examinations: the 90-minute, 65-question vSphere 6 Foundations Exam, and the 100-minute, 85-question VMware Certified Professional 6 – Data Center Virtualization Exam. Recertification: Two years. Cost: $345 ($120 for foundations exam, $225 for VCP6-DCV exam) Description: "Validates that you know how to administer and troubleshoot vSphere V6 infrastructures, leveraging best practices to provide a scalable and reliable virtualization platform for your company." Certification: Citrix Certified Professional - Virtualization (CCP-V) Vendor: Citrix Structure: One test Recertification: Three years Cost: $300 Description: Requires previous CCA-V certification. Focused on desktop virtualization, not server. As noted above, there are many certification choices you can make. What would you add or drop from the list? What do you think in general about certifications? Image credit: Flickr

× PHOTOS: Tornado damage in Tupelo, Mississippi Forecasters declared a tornado emergency for three counties around Tupelo, Mississippi, on Monday afternoon as a line of severe thunderstorms swept through the area, the National Weather Service reported. “It’s going to be wave after wave of these storms, from what the forecasters tell us,” Mississippi Emergency Management spokesman Greg Flynn said. Another twister was reported near Yazoo City, Mississippi, north of Jackson, but there was no immediate report of damage or injuries. Monday’s storms hit four years after an April 2010 tornado that killed four people in Yazoo City and 10 across the state, said Joey Ward, the city’s emergency management director. MORE: Storm chaser video of Tupelo tornado | Tupelo meteorologist yells for staff to take shelter on live TV during tornado PHOTOS: Utility pole & crushed utility truck on hwy 45 in tupelo pic.twitter.com/2UxFEUfCyz — Tish Clark (@local24tish) April 28, 2014 Tupelo apts damaged by tornadoes. pic.twitter.com/IZ00brtzt2 — Tish Clark (@local24tish) April 28, 2014 Tornado damage here in Tupelo pic.twitter.com/e2zNEIdX5c — Earl Brown (@cosine55) April 28, 2014 Some stuff hitting us in tupelo, ms #TheWeatherChannel pic.twitter.com/IywvoR8WSL — Nicholas Massey ✌ (@AThinkingMind) April 28, 2014 https://twitter.com/1ChrisForrester/status/460901413623566336 A rare before and after tornado shot from Tupelo pic.twitter.com/EB6tlnlPI9 — Jimmy Carter (@askjimmycarter) April 28, 2014 One of my best high school memories, gone. pic.twitter.com/9rPy032rGv — Kyle Holliman (@thekholly11) April 28, 2014 Another photo from what looks to be from Tupelo area. RT @jayward11: pic.twitter.com/XiZ5EniK4H — Kennan Oliphant (@TVNewsGuru) April 28, 2014 RT @WiscoWX: Car rolled by tornado in tupelo pic.twitter.com/jxLFTzs8iI — The Daily Rapid (@earththreats) April 28, 2014 Major tornado damage in Tupelo area! pic.twitter.com/OMRf1gVh7V — Rock104 (@Rock104FM) April 28, 2014 From @DanielShawAU live stream- flipped semi in Tupelo, MS after tornado pic.twitter.com/OvynGycVPh — SevereStudios (@severestudios) April 28, 2014 This is Vanellis in Tupelo where I work. Everyone is safe. Praising God for His hand of mercy over my coworkers. pic.twitter.com/2iyDneDy9O — Brandy Davis (@brandydavis01) April 28, 2014 Just arrived on scene in Mayflower AR. It's a mess out here. With @edlavaCNN pic.twitter.com/KLvQ7Bm9Sd — Josh Rubin (@jrubin) April 28, 2014

Royal Jordanian Air is making a last-ditch pitch to travelers, telling Middle Easterners to visit the United States before a possible Donald Trump Donald John TrumpREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails Trump urges North Korea to denuclearize ahead of summit Venezuela's Maduro says he fears 'bad' people around Trump MORE presidency. ADVERTISEMENT "Just in case he wins... travel to the U.S. while you're still allowed to!" the airline tweeted on Election Day. The post includes current prices of the Royal Jordanian Air's flights to the U.S. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, originally proposed a ban on Muslim immigration to the U.S. but has recently scaled back his rhetoric to focus on "extreme vetting" of those who want to enter the U.S. Royal Jordanian Air flies from Jordan, a Muslim-majority country, to New York, Chicago and Detroit. The airline isn't the first to use Trump's rhetoric for an ad campaign. Earlier this year, Air Canada invited Americans to "test drive" the country should Trump win.

Spread the love Pocatello, ID — There is a saying among law enforcement when they are questioned for writing asinine tickets for non-crimes and arresting well-meaning people who may be in possession of a plant to treat their child — ‘Just doing my job.’ This phrase is uttered countless times a day as police officers write tickets for everything from window tint to license plate lights — as they somehow think it justifies this level of extortion. The most recent case of extortion for non-crimes is getting a lot of attention in Idaho because police extorted a man who was actually providing a community service. When it snows in his community, Mitch Fisher is ready to help. “I take care of the neighbors. They’re all elderly and I like to help them out,” Fisher said. Fisher’s community service of plowing streets and sidewalks — for free — is so highly regarded that he was featured in a segment on a local news station in December. “I try to clean my spot and all the neighbors around me so we have a nice area to park and pull in,” Fisher said las month. “Also, hopefully, so no one gets stuck in front of my house.” But his good deed did not go unnoticed by the revenue collectors. On Wednesday, a Pocatello police officer came prowling and issued Fisher a citation for ‘depositing material on a public right of way.’ Fisher will now be extorted for over $200 for helping the city clean the roadways. Naturally, according to Local 8 News, Fisher was baffled. “I tried to talk (the officer) out of it and tell him what I was doing, that I was trying to get it out of the street because (the street) hasn’t been plowed since the beginning of snow season,” he said. “Of course, he was doing his job, wrote the citation and went on his way.” The law used to extort Fisher was Chapter 9 of Pocatello’s city code which states, “It is unlawful for any person to deposit, place or allow to remain in or upon any public right of way any material or substance injurious to persons or property.” Obviously depositing trash, debris, or anything else that would obstruct the street is a dangerous practice. However, Fisher was doing the opposite of this as he moved the snow into a pile right next to his curb. “I didn’t want it in front of (my neighbors’) houses because they can’t park. I don’t care if it’s in front of mine,” Fisher explained of his community service. Fisher’s ticket received heavy backlash after he posted it on Facebook in the group “You know you grew up in Pocatello when…” However, the administrator took it down after the conversation apparently got too heated. To highlight how caring of a man he is, Fisher posted to the group yesterday — apologizing for sharing his ticket in it and didn’t mean for it to start any controversy. Within that post, Fisher was praised by his neighbors and community for providing the service and the overwhelming majority of people are on his side. “Sounds like they should fire a cop with too much time on his hands and use that money to hire a snowplow contractor,” said one neighbor. “Inept city hacks hate competition. I saw a neighbor with a plow accomplish more in our neighborhood in 1/2 an hour than the city has all year,” said Facebook user Brad. “The city refuses to clear the street, but punishes a good citizen for doing their jobs for them? Proof that in a police state, it is about collecting revenue. And NOT about protecting public safety,” said Scott. Also, there is good news to this story as Fisher says he will not back down. “I’ll keep doing what I’m doing. I don’t care about the city,” he said. According to Local 8, Fisher plans on fighting the ticket. However, even if he loses — he will continue to help. “If it cost me 206 dollars a year so be it, I’ll have peace of mind knowing it helps them out,” Fisher said in the Facebook group. It is quite heartening to hear of such resistance to petty tyranny. Unjust laws will remain unjust until they are disobeyed by good people like Fisher. Had brave individuals throughout history not risked imprisonment or worse to challenge tyrannical, racist, and immoral laws, society today, would be much less free. Thank you, Mitch Fisher, for standing up for what is right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbP28sImWfQ

FOR a politician whose party leader called a General Election because the opinion polls told her that she’d get a whopping majority, only to discover once the votes were in that she’d lost the slender majority that she had, you’d think that Ruth Davidson would be a bit more circumspect about demanding that parties in power make decisions based on opinion polls. But no, Ruth Davidson wants the Scottish Government to drop the bill that’s already been passed by the Scottish Parliament, and she wants them to drop it on the basis of an opinion poll. You’d have thought a Tory would have learned their lesson about relying on opinion polls, but not Ruth. It’s not even as though the opinion poll in question, which purportedly showed that 60 per cent of people oppose another independence referendum, was unbiased and neutral. It asked a ridiculously leading question, a question phrased in such a way as to positively beg people to say “no”. The truth is that asking people whether they want another independence referendum is a meaningless exercise, in whatever way the question is phrased, and the reason it’s meaningless is because it takes no account of circumstances or motives. I’m hugely keen on the idea of independence, you may have noticed, but if I was asked in an opinion poll if I wanted a referendum tomorrow, I’d say no. I want another referendum when the circumstances are right for one. I want another referendum when we’re going to win it. So, despite the fact that I spend much of my time travelling the length and breadth of Scotland talking about independence and encouraging the formation of grass roots Yes groups, Ruth Davidson would still take my opinion and include it in whatever she’s citing at FMQs as “proof” that Scotland doesn’t want another independence referendum. The best time for another independence referendum is at the time that the Scottish Government originally proposed to have it – when the Brexit negotiations have played out and we know what sort of deal the UK has struck with the EU. The people of Scotland have a right to vote on that. Ruth doesn’t want us to have that right. She wants us to take whatever it is that the UK chucks at us and to be grateful for it. What Ruth Davidson is demanding is that the people of Scotland surrender now and for all time the right to have a view on what British governments impose on us. The Tories want Scotland to make a pinkie promise to accept whatever Brexit deal Westminster comes up with. Still, it’s not like we should listen to Ruth’s opinion on anything much; her boss certainly doesn’t. Theresa May doesn’t listen to Ruth on the topic of LGBTI rights nor, indeed, on anything much else. Despite the entreaties that Ruth made to Theresa May after the latter announced her intention to make a deal with the arch-homophobes of the DUP and the assurances that she reportedly received that LGBTI rights wouldn’t be affected, Theresa went and appointed David Lidington as Justice Secretary, a man who has consistently voted against every single piece of legislation improving LGBTI rights. Mind you, getting assurances from Ruth Davidson on LGBTI rights wouldn’t inspire much in the way of confidence at the best of times, as she seems to believe that the entire point of the campaign for LGBTI equality was “please don’t be nasty to gay people so that we can be Daily Mail readers too.” What we’ve been witnessing this past week is a shameless attempt by a politician who lost an election to act as though she’d won it. Since her boss in London is attempting much the same trick it’s not like we should be surprised. It’s the most brazen attempt at a power grab since one of the contestants on RuPaul’s Drag Race hogged all the electrical sockets with his hair drier. The Tories are doing deals with the orange-sashed DUP, they’re stirring up sectarianism in Scotland, and their media friends are silent all of a sudden about the Ulsterisation of our politics. An elderly relative of mine is your archetypal west of Scotland Catholic, and he voted No in the referendum because, he said, he didn’t want to be “ruled by Presbyterians”. So how’s that working out now, eh? The facts are, however, that despite all the dirty deals, despite all the electoral spending, Ruth Davidson’s Conservatives (TM) won just 13 seats out of 59. They fought the election on the single issue of opposition to another independence referendum, and they still lost. Improving on the number of seats you achieved still doesn’t make you a winner, any more than improving your results in an arithmetic exam from an F to a D means that you’re now top of the class. Scotland looked at Ruth Davidson’s party and still gave them a failing grade – all the Tory triumphalism in the world won’t change that simple arithmetical reality.

It’s a well-kept secret, but 95% of the climate models we are told prove the link between human CO₂ emissions and catastrophic global warming have been found, after nearly two decades of temperature stasis, to be in error. It’s not surprising. – Maurice Newman, AC, Chair of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council, writing in The Australian newspaper, May 8, 2015. As the Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s top business adviser, Mr Newman is a person of influence in Australia so his public statements should be held up to scrutiny. In a recent newspaper column, Mr Newman said discrepancies between climate model forecasts and recorded temperatures begged the question: “Why then, with such little evidence, does the UN insist the world spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on futile climate change policies?” All scientists would agree with Mr Newman that critical analysis of mathematical modelling is a crucial part of science. But it is a logical fallacy to leap from that valuable topic to describing climate change policies as futile. Climate models: what they can and can’t do There is a saying in science that “all models are wrong, but some models are useful”. In simulating any complex system, any model will fail to reproduce all facets of the system perfectly. Mathematical models may be imperfect but they are extremely helpful to predict the weather, design aeroplanes and even test new vaccines. They are essential to modern life. A major part of scientific research is not only developing models, but determining how they are best employed. When asked for a data source to substantiate his 95% claim, Mr Newman referred The Conversation to research by a range of scientists including Professor Judith Curry from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Professor John Christy from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Mr Newman said these researchers had identified errors in climate modelling. Mr Newman also quoted former NASA scientist and University of Alabama in Huntsville research scientist, Dr Roy Spencer as saying: … the climate models that governments base policy decisions on have failed miserably. I’ve updated our comparison of 90 climate models versus observations for global average surface temperatures through 2013, and we still see that >95% of the models have over-forecast the warming trend since 1979, whether we use their own surface temperature dataset (HadCRUT4), or our satellite dataset of lower tropospheric temperatures (UAH).“ It’s true that over the last two decades modelled surface temperatures have generally risen faster than temperatures recorded in real life. But there are good reasons for that and it doesn’t mean we should take the prospect of climate change any less seriously. Why don’t the models match observed temperatures? What Mr Newman described as a "well-kept secret” has actually been the subject of numerous scientific papers These papers show that the recent discrepancy between projections and recorded temperatures is very likely due to random fluctuations in the climate system. The “problem” is clearly seen in this graph showing that modelled surface temperatures have generally tracked above observed temperatures over recent years. This graph depicts two well known global surface temperature observational datasets, the UK’s HadCRUT and the US’ NASA GISS. To understand what’s happening, it is critical to realise that the climate changes for a number of reasons in addition to CO₂. These include solar variations, volcanic eruptions and human aerosol emissions. The influence of all these “climate drivers” are included in modern climate models. On top of this, our climate also changes as a result of natural and largely random fluctuations – like the El Nino Southern Oscillation, ENSO and the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation, [IPO] – that can redistribute heat to the deep ocean (thereby masking surface warming). Such fluctuations are unpredictable beyond a few months (or possibly years), being triggered by atmospheric and oceanic weather systems. So while models do generate fluctuations like ENSO and IPO, in centennial scale simulations they don’t (and wouldn’t be expected to) occur at the same time as they do in observations. Indeed, if some advanced civilisation were to make an exact copy of Earth, the copy would also fail to reproduce the fluctuation associated with the recent slowdown in temperatures. This is not a modelling failure, this is just a fact of life in dealing with complex systems. So, yes, as the figure shows there are multiple decadal periods in the past where the models either overestimate or underestimate the observed warming. Despite this, its clear that the overall modelled surface warming over the course of more than a century is only off by a very small margin. Ocean temperatures more reliable Rather than relying on surface temperature to keep track of global warming, it is far more reliable to look at total ocean heat content or its twin, ocean sea level (which reflects ocean heat content plus land ice melt). These metrics are far less sensitive to random fluctuations as they don’t suffer from the complications of heat redistribution. Moreover, over 90% of the additional heat from anthropogenic warming goes into the ocean, with only a small fraction going to raising surface temperatures. Based on these more representative metrics, there is no “pause” in either the observations or in the climate models. Indeed, both indicate increasing rates of change over time. No secrets here We have known of the link between CO₂ and warming since the experiments of John Tyndall in the mid 19th century. It’s certainly not a revelation from climate models. Indeed, by the end of that century, Swedish Nobel Prize laureate Svante Arrhenius had already predicted that large CO₂ emissions would cause substantial global warming. Modern climate models add considerable value to the well-tested empirical relationships. They resolve the land, ocean and atmosphere and explicitly include the impact of all known drivers of climate change without simply assuming that all change is due to CO₂ (as Mr Newman’s statement would imply). Critically, this means that we can use the unique fingerprints of each driver to disentangle and attribute the changes in historical temperature to these complex mix of drivers. The planet has clearly warmed over the last 100 years, and climate models demonstrate that natural drivers like the sun are unable to explain this warming. Conversely, the warming is consistent in both magnitude and spatial pattern with our emissions of greenhouse gases. Verdict Mr Newman’s implication that discrepancies resulting from the recent climate fluctuation somehow invalidates climate models is incorrect. Climate models have been thoroughly and critically tested against observations and are able to simulate with fair accuracy the component of climate change caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols as well as natural factors like solar variations and volcanic eruptions. However, long-term climate simulations do not and likely never will reproduce the timing of shorter-term random fluctuations, like the recent slowdown in surface temperatures. In the long run, this fluctuation, like many before, will just be noise on a gradually increasing temperature signal. That the discrepancy is a “well-kept secret” is demonstrably false given the large number of scientific papers discussing and trying to explain exactly this issue. Review This is a sound analysis that effectively explains the appropriate way to assess the reliability of models. Scientists can glean much scientific insight from comparing observations to model predictions, especially when there are discrepancies between the two. In contrast, the critique of models employed by Maurice Newman does not increase scientific understanding. – John Cook Have you ever seen a “fact” that doesn’t look quite right? The Conversation’s FactCheck asks academic experts to test claims and see how true they are. We then ask a second academic to review an anonymous copy of the article. You can request a check at checkit@theconversation.edu.au. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.

Image caption Zack Davies attacked Dr Sarandev Bhambra on 14 January A man has been found of guilty of attempted murder after attacking a dentist with a machete and a hammer in north Wales. Zack Davies, 26, targeted Dr Sarandev Bhambra at a Tesco store in Mold, Flintshire, in a racially motivated revenge assault for the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby. Davies, of Mold, admitted wounding with intent but denied attempted murder. He was convicted at Mold Crown Court on Thursday. He will be sentenced on 11 September. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption "We are in no doubt that had the racial disposition of this case been reversed this would be reported as an act of terror" - Dr Tarlochan Singh Bhambra, Sarandev's brother Dr Bhambra was walking down an aisle in the store on 14 January when he felt a "huge blow" to the back of his head from the 30cm (12in) machete. During the trial, shopper Leanne Jones said she heard the words "white power" and said Davies was acting "like a lunatic" as he hacked Dr Bhambra with the machete. Another witness heard Davies say: "Come here, this is for Lee Rigby". Image copyright PA Image caption Fusilier Lee Rigby, from Middleton in Greater Manchester, was murdered outside Woolwich Barracks Dr Bhambra suffered two cuts to his scalp which went down to the bone and a cut to his back which went down to the muscle. The injury to his left hand caused major nerve, artery and tendon damage and he was in surgery for five hours. Dr Bhambra told the jury that former soldier Peter Fuller saved his life when he intervened during the attack. Image copyright North Wales Police Image caption Davies attacked Dr Bhambra in Tesco using a machete and a hammer The court heard items associated with white supremacy and Nazism were found at Davies's home, including banners, swastika badges and Combat 18 stickers. He also said he was "absolutely fascinated" with Islamic State and described the British man known as Jihadi John as his inspiration. Gareth Preston, senior prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service Wales, described Davies as a "dangerous young man whose distorted and racist views led him to commit a terrifying act of violence". He added: "Such was the level of violence involved that, were it not for the extremely courageous actions of ex-serviceman Peter Fuller, this offence could have become an act of murder." Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale were jailed for life in February 2014 for hacking Fusilier Rigby to death. Image copyright cascadenews.co.uk Image caption Dr Bhambra said he would have been 'hacked to death' if he had lost consciousness Image copyright YouTube Image caption Davies told police he was a member of a far-right organisation, but had acted alone at the supermarket Image copyright CPS Image caption Davies almost chopped Dr Bhambra's hand off in the attack

DigitalGlobe is enlisting the crowd to scan and tag images of more than 1,200 square miles of ocean for any visible evidence that could help locate the Malaysia Airlines 777 aircraft that went missing this weekend. The Longmont-based earth-imagery company deployed its FirstLook service on Sunday, directing two of its five satellites to snap photos of the area in the Gulf of Thailand, where investigators suspected the plane may have crashed, and then activated its crowdsourcing platform, Tomnod, on Monday afternoon. Flight MH370, with 239 people on board, lost communication while on its way to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur. The missing plane continued to perplex investigators from around the globe three days later. “If there is something to see on the surface (of the water), we will see it. But the question is if we are looking in the right area,” said Luke Barrington, DigitalGlobe’s senior manager of geospatial big data. As each new theory led to a new dead end, the company recalibrated its action plan based on the Malaysian government’s new area of focus, north and east of oil slicks reported soon after the plane went missing. DigitalGlobe activates FirstLook — used by emergency-response agencies in natural disasters, manmade crises and human interest scenarios — about twice a week, while Tomnod is used more selectively and for different reasons, Barrington said. “We try to use the crowd wisely and not tire them out,” he said. “The story here is much more about the search than it is about the response. This whole feeling of not knowing, the lack of information or ability to do anything, we have seen time and again, is why people want to get involved.” Within the first hour Monday afternoon, the Tomnod map had 60,000 page views with more than a thousand tags. Ten minutes later, that was up to nearly 2,000. Barrington said that the crowd actually directed the company on this particular crisis, asking for them to deploy Tomnod. “The people who come to Tomnod are very motivated to solve problems,” Barrington said. “I would say we will have up to 10,000 contributors on this one.” DigitalGlobe is not the only earth-imagery company capable of delivering high-resolution images, but is arguably the U.S. industry leader. “There are an awful lot of assets up in orbit,” said Marco Caceres, senior space analyst at The Teal Group. “There’s dozens of earth observation satellites and all of them are very, very capable. If they are taking images, then there’s no lack of imagery. And if you haven’t been able to spot something by now, then I don’t know. It has been three days.” Kristen Leigh Painter: 303-954-1638, kpainter@denverpost.com or twitter.com/kristenpainter

People travelling to the Czech Republic have been warned to avoid consuming locally produced spirits following a spate of deaths linked to methanol-laced alcohol. To date, 19 people have died and 36 people have been admitted to hospital after drinking illegally-produced liquor that contains high levels of methanol. The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) today reminded people the Czech government has banned all products with alcohol content of 20 per cent or greater. It said Czech authorities have confirmed that it is confined to the Czech Republic only. The tainted alcohol was sold in bottles under fake labels from at least two Czech liquor makers and the bottles weren't properly sealed, according to police. The poisonous drink was offered at discounts in bottles labelled as vodka or tuzemak, a local rum-like alcoholic beverage. Several people went blind or fell into coma after consuming it. Police have uncovered a chain of producers and distributors who supplied tainted drinks to retail outlets, bars and kiosks. Police have charged 23 people with various crimes related to making and spreading poisonous substances after raiding 40 premises, deputy interior minister Jaroslav Hruska said today. While the ban locked about 20 million bottles of spirits in warehouses and hurt liquor makers and hospitality businesses, the government is not considering easing it for now, health minister Leos Heger told reporters in Prague. "Declining profits, in the context of 19 and potentially more deaths, are a lower priority at this moment," Mr Heger said. Easing the ban "won't be a matter for consideration in the next few days." As many as 35 people have been hospitalised, with five new cases of poisoning occurring in the past 24 hours, Mr Heger said. Two people in Slovakia were hospitalised with cases of "lighter poisoning" after drinking plum brandy bought over the internet in the Czech Republic, Mr Heger said. Slovakia today joined Poland in banning the sale of liquor imported from the Czech Republic. Both countries border the Czech Republic.

Carlos Tevez says he will snub Chelsea interest to stay at Boca Carlos Tevez won Premier League titles with Manchester United and Manchester City Carlos Tevez claims he will snub interest from Chelsea this summer to see out his career with Boca Juniors. The Argentina forward says Chelsea and Italian side Napoli want to bring him back to Europe, where he spent nine years with West Ham, both Manchester clubs and Antonio Conte's Juventus. Tevez returned to Buenos Aires and first club Boca in 2015, and the message to interested European clubs is clear: 'I'm not coming back'. "I'm fine at Boca," said the 32, year-old, quoted in Italy's Corriere dello Sport. "Indeed my idea, my dream is to finish my career as a player in this wonderful club. "Europe? Yes, it's true Napoli and Chelsea seek me, but I repeat what I said before. My desire is to stay at Boca until I retire." West Ham co-chairman David Sullivan revealed earlier this month he had explored the possibility of re-signing Tevez, claiming the deal broke down over the player's wage demands. Tevez became a cult hero in east London when he helped save the club from relegation in 2007, and Premier League successes with United and City followed. He left for Juve in 2013 when new Chelsea boss Conte was in charge and went on to win back-to-back Serie A titles.

The head of the Colorado Department of Revenue has written a letter to the Drug Enforcement Administration asking that federal controls on marijuana be loosened slightly to account for its “potential medicinal value.” Colorado is the third state with a medical-marijuana program to ask the DEA to reschedule marijuana. Revenue Department executive director Barbara Brohl’s letter, written Dec. 22, does not come as a surprise. A law passed last year in the legislature required the state to ask for rescheduling by the end of this year. In the letter, Brohl details briefly Colorado’s regulations for medical-marijuana sellers and argues that current federal law, under which all marijuana possession and distribution is illegal, make it difficult for her to administer Colorado’s laws. “As long as there is divergence in state and federal law, there is a lack of certainty necessary to provide safe access for patients with serious medical conditions,” Brohl wrote. The letter asks that the DEA consider moving marijuana from schedule I — a category that includes such drugs as heroin and LSD that are not considered to have medicinal value — to schedule II. Drugs in that category, such as methadone and cocaine, are considered to have some medicinal value but also can be highly addictive. Schedule II substances are able to be prescribed by doctors but are still subject to strict controls. It is unclear whether Colorado’s medical-marijuana laws — which allow doctors to authorize marijuana use through recommendation and allow patients to grow their own cannabis plants — would clash with those controls. Earlier this year, the governors of Rhode Island and Washington also asked the DEA to reschedule marijuana. The DEA has in the past rejected similar requests to reclassify the substance. John Ingold: 303-954-1068 or jingold@denverpost.com

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There aren’t many places in Seattle that haven’t changed at all in my lifetime. But walking into Tai Tung restaurant in the Chinatown-International District is like stepping out of a time machine. There’s the wood paneling, mauve upholstery and thick laminate menu I remember from special dinners out with my family as a child. But the restaurant’s history runs much deeper than that. “The door that you just walked through, that swinging door? That door is 80 some years old,” says Siang Hui Tay, who adds that the restaurant opened in 1935 and is the oldest remaining Chinese restaurant in neighborhood . Tay would know. Inspired by the history of Tai Tung, she and her partner Val Tan have co-produced “A Taste Of Home,” a documentary showcasing local Chinese-American culinary history, which will play opening night of the Seattle Asian American Film Festival next week. But it wasn’t the restaurant’s door, historic lunch counter or Bruce Lee’s favorite table (he was a regular) that first attracted the filmmaking duo, who work under the brand “Tay & Val.” It was the food — specifically Chinese comfort food from their home country of Singapore. “We were looking for a taste of home,” says Tan, who was hoping for a taste of her grandmother’s egg foo young and “Yelped” her way to Tai Tung, which is famous for the dish. What she found there wasn’t the recipe she grew up with. She says the Singaporean version she knows is more of a shrimp scramble than a gravy-topped omelet. But the experience sparked an interest in the history of Chinese-American food of our region and introduced her to Harry Chan. Chan is a third generation owner of Tai Tung. He’s worked at the restaurant since 1968. In addition to being the devoted boss (he boasts that he keeps a sleeping bag at the ready so he can be sure to open even on snow days), he’s also an expert on the evolution of food in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District. “They ate pig feet and pig tails, ox tails, salmon head, peashoot vegetables steamed with pork, preserved pimento,” says Chan listing off some of the popular dishes once served by his grandfather. You won’t find all of those items on the menu today, but there are a few dishes that have remained unchanged since the restaurant’s opening day. “It’s all going to, at some point, disappear.” I ordered “Combination #1” as featured in “A Taste Of Home.” The spareribs were sweet and tender, the pork chow mien fresh and savory and the egg foo young pillowing light and deeply satisfying. What’s more, every bite felt like it brought me closer to the increasingly elusive history of my city. For more of that edible history, Val & Tay’s film — which is funded in part by 4Culture and City of Seattle Office of Arts and Culture — showcases five of the oldest Chinese-American establishments in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District including: Tai Tung, the Tsue Chong Noodle Factory (you’ve eaten their fortune cookies), Fortuna Café and the now-closed Mon Hei Bakery and Yick Fung Grocery Store . “We just started it as a passion project,” says Tay who feels an urgency to document this history before it’s gone. “It’s all going to, at some point, disappear.” But Harry Chan and Tai Tung have no plans of disappearing, at least not anytime soon. When I asked him if he thinks the restaurant will make it to 100 he just smiles and answers, “We’ll see.” I’d bet they do. “A Taste Of Home” is playing Thursday, February 23rd at 7:30PM at The SIFF Cinema Egyptian on Capitol Hill as part of the Seattle Asian American Film Festival. You can find tickets at: seattleaaff.org/2017/films/taste-of-home/ 0 email

Two of the three investigations into the actions of Salt Lake City Police officers Detective Jeff Payne and Lt. James Tracy following Payne’s arrest of University of Utah Health nurse Alex Wubbels have finished. The first — the police department’s internal affairs investigation — concluded that Tracy violated five departmental policies. It found that he acted with conduct unbecoming of an officer. Other rules broken include behaving with courtesy in public contacts, a policy favoring misdemeanor citations over arrests ”whenever possible,” the code of ethics and a standards of conduct policy. It also found that Payne violated all five of those same policies, plus an additional policy which required him to report his use of physical force while arresting Wubbels — which he did not do. Of Payne’s actions, the department wrote, “You demonstrated extremely poor professional judgment (especially for an officer with 27 years of experience), which calls into question your ability to effectively serve the public and the Department in a manner that inspires the requisite trust, respect, and confidence.” To both employees, letters said, “disciplinary action, which may include termination of your employment, is being considered in response to actions on your part which appear to be a violation of policy and/or expectations related to the performance of your job duties.” Payne’s lawyer, Greg Skordas, responded to the internal investigation’s results. He complimented their accounting of the facts but took issue with some of the results. He said he feels the report wouldn’t have been so harsh if the body camera footage hadn’t been publicly released and believes the report will be used to “justify major discipline … when it’s not warranted here.” “He made a terrible mistake … But let’s not overstate it because it’s become a YouTube sensation,” Skordas said. The second investigation — an independent review by the Civilian Review Board — concluded with findings that Tracy did not meet the responsibilities of his position as a watch commander, that both officers should have contacted the department’s legal adviser and that both officers did not understand the laws in question. It also found that Payne violated three department policies — public courtesy, blood draw procedures and his obligation to follow policy and orders. The Civilian Review Board’s report also noted that no other police officer or security personnel present at the time of the incident intervened. These officers were from both SLCPD and the University of Utah’s campus police department. The security there was employed by the hospital. Wubbels and her lawyer have named the inaction of those individuals as one of their primary concerns. Their actions are also under ongoing criminal investigation by the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s office, in coordination with the Unified Police Department and the FBI. Wubbels had called hospital security when Payne became agitated. They came, but did not intervene in any way, telling her it was a “police matter” in which they couldn’t “get involved.” When she asked a U police officer to protect her from Payne, who was threatening her with arrest at the time, he told her that he would not prevent Payne from arresting her if she interfered with his work because her actions were obstruction of justice. One U officer, Steven Worona, appears to assist in Payne’s arrest of Wubbels by placing his hand on her shoulder to hold her still. After she was arrested, he approached Payne and Tracy, offering to help them get the blood they wanted. In a video released online, U police Chief Dale Brophy said, “Having seen the video and firsthand what she went through, and what she tried to do to de-escalate and solve the problem, I think that somebody else — [university] security and/or police — could have stepped up and taken that role from her and been the advocate for her like they should’ve been.” Brophy said he’s met with the department and instituted more de-escalation training “to make sure it never happens again.” On July 26, Payne went to the U’s hospital in search of a patient’s blood on behalf of the Logan Police Department. When Wubbels refused to give him a sample under policy agreed to by the hospital and SLCPD, Payne arrested her and pulled her out of the hospital while she screamed for help. Tracy, Payne’s supervisor that day, arrived shortly after the arrest. He had ordered her arrest. Payne and Tracy have both worked as police officers for decades. Payne has won multiple awards for his work, including a Purple Heart award from the Utah Peace Officer’s Association after being shot during a traffic stop. Tracy has held several leadership positions in the force. Both have been reprimanded in the past. In 2013, then-Chief Chris Burbank gave a written reprimand to Payne over allegations that he had sexually harassed a female coworker over a long period of time, including unwanted physical contact. He had also been suspended in 1995 after a police chase in which he violated several department policies. Tracy’s only formal reprimand was in 1997 after he arrested two people, then released them on the other side of the city, never documenting what happened. Payne and Tracy now have until Oct. 3 to respond to the results of the internal affairs investigation. After that time period, SLCPD Chief Mike Brown will make a decision about the consequences the two officers will face. e.vandersteen@dailyutahchronicle.com @EliseAbril

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Rapidly spreading lawlessness as Somalia collapses in the worst fighting for two nearly decades is fuelling a wave of piracy that increasingly threatens one of the world’s most important waterways. South Korean ship Maputo 9 (L), which was hijacked by Somali pirates, is escorted by a Yemeni coast guard boat at Aden November 13, 2007. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah Although shipping costs have not been affected so far, it is forcing Western navies to take action to protect shipping. Some suspect that ransom payments to pirates could be helping Islamist insurgents fight the weak interim government. The piracy is also hampering aid shipments to Somalia and thereby worsening a humanitarian crisis that encourages the anarchy. Heavily-armed pirates from Somalia have hijacked at least 30 ships so far this year in the Gulf of Aden — last week seizing a record four vessels in 48 hours. “All the shipping companies are taking this very seriously and are very concerned. This is an unprecedented rise in attacks,” said Pottengal Mukundan, director of the International Maritime Bureau, a global piracy watchdog. The waters between Somalia and Yemen are a major artery used by nearly 20,000 vessels a year heading to and from the Suez Canal. The 700 million tons passing through the canal in 2007 was over 9 percent of an estimated 7.7 billion tons carried by global shipping. Merchant shipping carries more than 90 percent of the world’s traded goods by volume. In May, the advisory Joint War Committee of Lloyd’s Market Association designated the strategic channel at high risk of “war, strikes, terrorism and related perils”. “But it’s just a recommendation, and some underwriters may not follow it for their very important clients,” Mukundan told Reuters. “Costs have not gone up. Of course, if you are hijacked they go up quite significantly. But there is no contingent cost to piracy.” Somali pirates are currently holding about 130 crew members hostage on at least seven vessels, including huge chemical tankers and bulk-carriers. Gunmen are holding vessels from Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Nigeria, Germany and Iran. REBELS BEHIND ATTACKS? Attacks at sea have boomed as lawlessness increased in Somalia, where there has not been a working government since warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Since the start of last year, more than 8,000 civilians have been killed in fighting between allied Somali government and Ethiopian soldiers and Islamist rebels. Another 1 million have been driven from their homes. There are many theories about who exactly is behind the latest spate of hijackings. Most captured ships bring ransoms of more than $10,000, and in a few cases much more. Some security experts say there are signs insurgents may receive some of the ransoms and use them to fund attacks on the government. Last week, the rebels seized the key southern port of Kismayu. The United States says they have links to al Qaeda. Other experts point to ties forged between Somali pirates, most of whom are based in the northern Puntland region, and criminal networks in Yemen during years of people-smuggling. The Islamists deny masterminding the recent attacks at sea, and other analysts say the insurgents get most of their money from wealthy Somalis abroad, as well as backers in Arab nations. Analysts say some members of the interim government, many of whom are former warlords, may also profit from piracy. All agree that the inability of Puntland’s administration to crush organized crime has fed the chaos offshore. When the mineral-rich region declared itself semi-autonomous in 1998, it hoped to provide a model for a future, stable Somalia — clan-based federal governance with free elections and an effective parliament. “Now we are seeing Puntland essentially breaking down as an entity,” said Rashid Abdi, Somalia expert at the International Crisis Group thinktank. “You’re seeing a gradual takeover of the state by criminal gangs.” COALITION TASK FORCE Puntland officials have been powerless in the face of sophisticated pirates equipped with speed boats and heavy weapons. Onshore, the authorities have also failed to stop money counterfeiters and kidnapping gangs. That has created a climate where the pirates’ new homes, lavish weddings and flashy cars attract more and more young men desperate for work in the one of the poorest countries on Earth. Locals say recruitment is also fed by resentment at European fishing fleets harvesting tuna from Somali waters, and what they say is regular dumping of toxic waste on their shores. “The problem of piracy has to be looked at in the broader context of the failure of Puntland,” the ICG’s Abdi said. “It cannot be dealt with separately” The insecurity has also put a choke on the ability of the United Nations to get food aid to the fast-growing numbers of needy. That figure has leapt 77 percent this year to more than 3.2 million — more than a third of Somalia’s population. Canadian naval ships are escorting World Food Program shipments to Mogadishu until September, and U.N. officials say it is hoped that French and then German forces will take over. Further north in the Gulf of Aden, the recent attacks have also stung the anti-terrorist Combined Task Force 150 into action. The multinational unit, part of Washington’s Operation Enduring Freedom, is based in neighboring Djibouti and has come to the aid of many ships attacked by pirates. This week, it announced a string of waypoints marking a Maritime Security Patrol Area or safe corridor, which navy warships will patrol while coalition aircraft fly overhead. “It focuses our longer-term efforts to improve security and counter destabilizing activity in the region,” Lieutenant Stephanie Murdock, spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, told Reuters by telephone from Bahrain.

May 17th, 2017 Wests Tigers five-eighth Mitchell Moses has let the fans down after jumping ship to Parramatta mid-season. (AAP) May 17th, 2017 However, there is light at the end of the tunnel. I am looking at the recruitment announcements over recent weeks since new coach Ivan Cleary was appointed at the club. I can see a new team building already. Before I get to that though, just a quick comment on the transfer of 5/8 Mitchell Moses to the Parramatta Eels this week. This is a disappointing result for all concerned. I don’t buy into the notion that Mitchell should be so distracted by his contract situation that he could not perform for his current employers. There have been plenty of examples over the years where players have signed with rival clubs, sometimes 12 months or more before their current contract expires, yet they have been able to continue playing and giving 100% effort to their current club. I see absolutely no reason, why Mitchell Moses, as a professional sportsperson, should not have been expected, and willing, to fulfil his duties under the current contract for season 2017. Peter Sterling takes aim at Mitchell Moses I feel most sorry for the fans who looked forward to this year with great anticipation. The club plans its season, especially around sponsorship, membership, and marketing, very reliant on the playing roster they have available to them for the 12-month period. There are many of Mitchell Moses’ teammates whose own personal careers and performances would have relied heavily on playing with a player of Mitchell’s talent. All this has now been thrown into disarray because Mitchell wants to head off and start his new contract with another club as soon as possible. If that’s his attitude, then quite frankly the team, and the club, is better off without the distraction. On to the future. New coach Ivan Cleary has been very busy in the marketplace. Already the club has secured the services of experienced, representative-class players like Josh Reynolds, Ben Matulino, Russell Packer and Chris McQueen. My mail is that there will be more announcements this week on another two signings from rival clubs. In some respects, it looks like Cleary is “putting the band back together” with his recruitment of Matulino and Packer. These two big boys were a major part of Cleary’s 2011 Grand Final team at the New Zealand Warriors. They now join former Warriors’ teammate Elijah Taylor at the West Tigers. I suggest it may not be the last player the Tigers recruit from across the Tasman. Warriors prop Ben Matulino will join Wests Tigers in 2018 and add some much-needed grunt up front. (AAP) I really like the signing of Josh Reynolds. He will be so good for the Tigers. His experience and competitive nature will complement young half-back Luke Brooks perfectly. His enthusiasm, spirit and courage are infectious. He will have a positive influence on his new teammates. This guy is a real winner. I have always been a fan of Chris McQueen. He is a very tough player. He plays with great passion. As a former winger, he provides great mobility playing in the forward pack. He has given great service to both South Sydney and the Gold Coast Titans. I think this is a tremendous acquisition. The hardest player to replace will be fullback James Tedesco. There is no player quite like him anywhere in the NRL. Proven fullbacks are also very expensive. I’m not sure how much room the Tigers have left in their salary cap after their recent buying spree, but it would seem more likely they will need to search for a youngster who is on the way up, and patiently develop him in this key position. The Tigers currently have two outstanding young outside backs in the shape of David Nofoaluma and Moses Suli. These kids are tremendous athletes. I love watching them play. Wests Tigers rookie Moses Suli has emerged as a genuine talent at the club this season. (AAP) All in all, I can see a really competitive team building here. Despite the pain the fans have had to endure in recent times, I have no doubt there will be better days ahead. One also hopes that the Wests Tigers club has learned a real lesson from the events of the last 18 months. Their aim should be that the club should never have to go through this pain again. In the meantime, let’s hope the boys rally together and put some good football on the field for the remainder of the 2017 season. The fans deserve it. They need to cheer for someone.

EU politics: renewing the wedding vows 19/01/2015 Follow @eureferendum Jean-Claude Juncker says he is prepared to examine the UK's demands on how the EU should change – or so we are told by caveat: he will not allow certain "red lines", including on immigration issues, to be crossed. But what grabs the headline is the Commission President comparing EU-UK relations to a love affair. "It's easy to fall in love and more difficult to stay together", Juncker says, also observing that, "people shouldn't stay together if the conditions aren't the same as when things started". That, of course, is horse manure: conditions always change, so the test is whether people can adapt to them. In the case of the EU though, which – at best – was a loveless, arranged marriage, there never was a situation when we should have stayed together. Nevertheless, while Juncker still feels that, "it's in the interest of both the UK and the EU to stay together", he reaffirms that he won't weaken the EU's fundamental principles. "When one mentions the end of the free circulation of workers, there can be no debate, dialogue or compromise", he says. "We can fight against abuses - and national lawmakers can do that - but the EU lawmakers won't change the treaties to satisfy the will of certain politicians". So, it seems, Juncker is still playing the "bad cop" against Merkel's "good cop", although he's not saying anything very new. Interestingly, though, Mr Cameron could be acquiring another ally, in This is Viktor Orban, who says he believes the EU's laws on asylum should be tightened, just a week after he said in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris that immigration into Europe should stop – with not an EU flag in sight (pictured). "This is a Christian country", he said on a Sunday radio talk show. "We can help those who are indeed chased out of their countries, but we have to make it clear we don’t want to be the destination for immigrants seeking to make a living here". The number seeking asylum last year in Hungary was 43,000 last year, double the figure in 2013, Mr. Orban says, a large number in relation to Hungary's total population of a little below ten million. "If Europe continues to bury its head in the sand, these trends won't change. It now seems like Brussels won't shield us from this issue; we have to protect ourselves", Orban adds, then saying that the Dublin Regulation should be upheld, so that those immigrants who manage to escape farther westward within the EU can be transported back to the country where they entered the EU. Hungary is perhaps not the best of allies though. It gets asylum seekers routed through its territory from Greece and Bulgaria, most often via Serbia, where there were 19,951 illegal crossings in 2013, up 212 percent on the previous year. But in Hungary, though – as the German broadcaster The few existing facilities are overflowing, so that many refugees are housed in former military barracks or community buildings converted into prisons for migrants. In April 2014, more than 40 percent of all male asylum seekers were being housed in a prison. The reasons for arrest were arbitrary and unclear. As a rule, migrants were held for a month without having committed a crime. The UNHCR Detainees remained behind bars typically for four to five months, while some for the entire length of their asylum procedure. They were locked in their cells much of the day, suffered verbal and physical abuse by the security guards, and were escorted in handcuffs and on leashes to the court hearings or even to doctors, treated like a criminal. Hungarian authorities often automatically started the aliens police procedure and ordered detention of asylum-seekers. Courts tended to review detention orders in group hearings, dealing with the case of 5-10 people in 30 minutes that was not enough time properly to consider the facts of each individual case. According to UNHCR, asylum-seekers were also routinely deported to Serbia, considered by Hungary as a safe third country. In Serbia, however, asylum-seekers faced chain deportations to Macedonia and Greece, countries with no adequate asylum systems in place, and where asylum-seekers faced the risk of refoulement to countries where they may have fled danger or persecution. However, resistance to the flow of asylum seekers is also manifest in the Czech Republic where, on Friday, hundreds showed up for a rally in which protesters objected to allowing Muslims to settle in Central Europe (even after this Monday's The centre-left Czech government has so far been reluctant to offer asylum to refugees from the Middle East because of concerns that potential terrorists might be among them. It eventually agreed to take in 70 Syrian refugees under EU pressure, against thousands presenting themselves to the rest of the EU. But that also makes the Czech government a potential ally for Mr Cameron, who is not looking quite so isolated on this issue as some might aver. Softly, softly, "Europe" is going his way. He may well confound Juncker, and bring home his treaty, sufficient for him to call upon the British to renew their wedding vows. Jean-Claude Juncker says he is prepared to examine the UK's demands on how the EU should change – or so we are told by Bloomberg . but there is a: he will not allow certain "red lines", including on immigration issues, to be crossed.But what grabs the headline is the Commission President comparing EU-UK relations to a love affair. "It's easy to fall in love and more difficult to stay together", Juncker says, also observing that, "people shouldn't stay together if the conditions aren't the same as when things started".That, of course, is horse manure: conditions always change, so the test is whether people can adapt to them. In the case of the EU though, which – at best – was a loveless, arranged marriage, there never was a situation when we should have stayed together.Nevertheless, while Juncker still feels that, "it's in the interest of both the UK and the EU to stay together", he reaffirms that he won't weaken the EU's fundamental principles."When one mentions the end of the free circulation of workers, there can be no debate, dialogue or compromise", he says. "We can fight against abuses - and national lawmakers can do that - but the EU lawmakers won't change the treaties to satisfy the will of certain politicians".So, it seems, Juncker is still playing the "bad cop" against Merkel's "good cop", although he's not saying anything very new.Interestingly, though, Mr Cameron could be acquiring another ally, in Hungary's prime minister . Yesterday, he was urging the EU to limit immigration, saying that some people were abusing the asylum rules, when they were actually seeking employment.This is Viktor Orban, who says he believes the EU's laws on asylum should be tightened, just a week after he said in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris that immigration into Europe should stop – with not an EU flag in sight (pictured)."This is a Christian country", he said on a Sunday radio talk show. "We can help those who are indeed chased out of their countries, but we have to make it clear we don’t want to be the destination for immigrants seeking to make a living here".The number seeking asylum last year in Hungary was 43,000 last year, double the figure in 2013, Mr. Orban says, a large number in relation to Hungary's total population of a little below ten million."If Europe continues to bury its head in the sand, these trends won't change. It now seems like Brussels won't shield us from this issue; we have to protect ourselves", Orban adds, then saying that the Dublin Regulation should be upheld, so that those immigrants who manage to escape farther westward within the EU can be transported back to the country where they entered the EU.Hungary is perhaps not the best of allies though. It gets asylum seekers routed through its territory from Greece and Bulgaria, most often via Serbia, where there were 19,951 illegal crossings in 2013, up 212 percent on the previous year. But in Hungary, though – as the German broadcaster Spiegel reported in September 2014, there is no functioning asylum system. Illegal detention is routine and guards use drugs to sedate migrants.The few existing facilities are overflowing, so that many refugees are housed in former military barracks or community buildings converted into prisons for migrants. In April 2014, more than 40 percent of all male asylum seekers were being housed in a prison. The reasons for arrest were arbitrary and unclear. As a rule, migrants were held for a month without having committed a crime.The UNHCR has been critical of conditions in the asylum prisons, calling them "inhumane and demeaning".Detainees remained behind bars typically for four to five months, while some for the entire length of their asylum procedure. They were locked in their cells much of the day, suffered verbal and physical abuse by the security guards, and were escorted in handcuffs and on leashes to the court hearings or even to doctors, treated like a criminal.Hungarian authorities often automatically started the aliens police procedure and ordered detention of asylum-seekers. Courts tended to review detention orders in group hearings, dealing with the case of 5-10 people in 30 minutes that was not enough time properly to consider the facts of each individual case.According to UNHCR, asylum-seekers were also routinely deported to Serbia, considered by Hungary as a safe third country. In Serbia, however, asylum-seekers faced chain deportations to Macedonia and Greece, countries with no adequate asylum systems in place, and where asylum-seekers faced the risk ofto countries where they may have fled danger or persecution.However, resistance to the flow of asylum seekers is also manifest in the Czech Republic where, on Friday, hundreds showed up for a rally in which protesters objected to allowing Muslims to settle in Central Europe (even after this Monday's Pegida rally had been cancelled.The centre-left Czech government has so far been reluctant to offer asylum to refugees from the Middle East because of concerns that potential terrorists might be among them. It eventually agreed to take in 70 Syrian refugees under EU pressure, against thousands presenting themselves to the rest of the EU.But that also makes the Czech government a potential ally for Mr Cameron, who is not looking quite so isolated on this issue as some might aver. Softly, softly, "Europe" is going his way. He may well confound Juncker, and bring home his treaty, sufficient for him to call upon the British to renew their wedding vows.

Posted 6 years ago on Sept. 23, 2012, 4:08 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt Tags: police, s17, bloomberg, nyc The first anniversary of Occupy Wall Street was a joyous affair for the 99%. Yet regrettably, it was also a day that illustrated how Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ‘private army’ has been increasingly unleashed to beat, arrest, imprison, and broadly suppress OWS. Please post your videos, photos, and stories about how your rights were infringed on the Occupy Bloomberg’s Army Facebook page. Occupy is a nonviolent movement, but this has not prevented Bloomberg’s Army from engaging in targeted arrests of specific organizers as well as random street ‘snatch and release’ intimidation tactics. On September 17th not even the constant drone of helicopters overhead could drown out the screams of ‘I’m a journalist’ from the reporters who were arrested merely for practicing their and our right to freedom of the press. And not even a cry of ‘I’m a City Councilmember’ was enough to staunch the established policy of brutality within the Mayor of Wall Street’s Police Department. The message being sent by Bloomberg’s Army is being heard loud and clear. In Bloomberg’s New York: anyone who supports Occupy Wall Street in any fashion is being made an example of. Were you one of these people extra-legally arrested or assaulted, or have you witnessed someone who was? Post your videos, photos, and stories on the Occupy Bloomberg’s Army Facebook page. We will not be stymied by the over 180 arrests on our anniversary, nor intimidated by the unprovoked and random nature of so many of them. We will fight for our right to protest Wall Street while we protest Wall Street itself. All Roads Lead To Wall Street -- from the ‘Your Inbox: Occupied’ team (click here to subscribe)

ABC chairman Jim Spigelman has strongly criticised the federal government's proposed anti-discrimination law, saying it poses risks to freedom of speech. Mr Spigelman, former New South Wales chief justice, said there was no justification for including the notion of ''offending'' in the definition of discrimination. The legislation consolidates several anti-discrimination laws, including that on racial discrimination, which refers to treatment that offends. The proposed law extends ''offending'' into the definition of discrimination for all purposes. Delivering an oration on Human Rights Day, Mr Spigelman pointed out that none of the other existing Commonwealth acts - covering sex, disability and age discrimination - included conduct that only offended. The freedom to offend was an integral component of freedom of speech. ''There is no right not to be offended. I am not aware of any international human rights instrument, or national anti-discrimination statute in another liberal democracy, that extends to conduct which is merely offensive,'' he said.

The connection between race and intelligence has been a subject of debate in both popular science and academic research since the inception of IQ testing in the early 20th century. There remains some debate as to whether and to what extent differences in intelligence test scores reflect environmental factors as opposed to genetic ones, as well as to the definitions of what "race" and "intelligence" are, and whether they can be objectively defined. Currently, there is no non-circumstantial evidence that these differences in test scores have a genetic component, although some researchers believe that the existing circumstantial evidence makes it at least plausible that hard evidence for a genetic component will eventually be found. The first test showing differences in IQ test results between different population groups in the US was the tests of United States Army recruits in World War I. In the 1920s groups of eugenics lobbyists argued that this demonstrated that African-Americans and certain immigrant groups were of inferior intellect to Anglo-Saxon whites due to innate biological differences, using this as an argument for policies of racial segregation. Soon, other studies appeared, contesting these conclusions and arguing instead that the Army tests had not adequately controlled for the environmental factors such as socio-economic and educational inequality between blacks and whites. The debate reemerged again in 1969, when Arthur Jensen championed the view that for genetic reasons Africans were less intelligent than whites and that compensatory education for African-American children was therefore doomed to be ineffective. In 1994, the book The Bell Curve argued that social inequality in the United States could largely be explained as a result of IQ differences between races and individuals, and rekindled the public and scholarly debate with renewed force. During the debates following the book's publication, the American Anthropological Association and the American Psychological Association (APA) published official statements regarding the issue, both highly skeptical of some of the book's claims, although the APA report called for more empirical research on the issue. History of the debate Claims of races having different intelligence were used to justify colonialism, slavery, racism, social Darwinism, and racial eugenics. Racial thinkers such as Arthur de Gobineau relied crucially on the assumption that black people were innately inferior to whites in developing their ideologies of white supremacy. Even enlightenment thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson, a slave owner, believed blacks to be innately inferior to whites in physique and intellect. Early IQ testing The first practical intelligence test was developed between 1905 and 1908 by Alfred Binet in France for school placement of children. Binet warned that results from his test should not be assumed to measure innate intelligence or used to label individuals permanently. Binet's test was translated into English and revised in 1916 by Lewis Terman (who introduced IQ scoring for the test results) and published under the name the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales. As Terman's test was published, there was great concern in the United States about the abilities and skills of recent immigrants. Different immigrant nationalities were sometimes thought to belong to different races, such as Slavs. A different set of tests developed by Robert Yerkes were used to evaluate draftees for World War I, and researchers found that people from southern and eastern Europe scored lower than native-born Americans, that Americans from northern states had higher scores than Americans from southern states, and that black Americans scored lower than white Americans. The results were widely publicized by a lobby of anti-immigration activists, including the New York patrician and conservationist Madison Grant, who considered the Nordic race to be superior, but under threat of immigration by inferior breeds. In his influential work A Study of American Intelligence psychologist Carl Brigham used the results of the Army tests to argue for a stricter immigration policy, limiting immigration to countries considered to belong to the "nordic race". In the 1920s, states like Virginia enacted eugenic laws, such as its 1924 Racial Integrity Act, which established the one-drop rule as law. On the other hand, many scientists reacted to eugenicist claims linking abilities and moral character to racial or genetic ancestry. They pointed to the contribution of environment to test results (such as speaking English as a second language). By the mid-1930s, many United States psychologists adopted the view that environmental and cultural factors played a dominant role in IQ test results, among them Carl Brigham who repudiated his own previous arguments, on the grounds that he realized that the tests were not a measure of innate intelligence. Discussion of the issue in the United States also influenced German Nazi claims of the "nordics" being a "master race", influenced by Grant's writings. As the American public sentiment shifted against the Germans, claims of racial differences in intelligence increasingly came to be regarded as problematic.[7] Anthropologists such as Franz Boas, and Ruth Benedict and Gene Weltfish, did much to demonstrate the unscientific status of many of the claims about racial hierarchies of intelligence. Nonetheless a powerful eugenics and segregation lobby funded largely by textile-magnate Wickliffe Draper, continued to publicize studies using intelligence studies as an argument for eugenics, segregation, and anti-immigration legislation. The Jensenism debates As the de-segregation of the American South was begun in the 1950s the debate about black intelligence resurfaced. Audrey Shuey, funded by Draper's Pioneer Fund, published a new analysis of Yerkes' tests, concluding that blacks really were of inferior intellect to whites. This study was used by segregationists as an argument that it was to the advantage of black children to be educated separately from the superior white children. In the 1960s, the debate was further revived when William Shockley publicly defended the argument that black children were innately unable to learn as well as white children. Arthur Jensen stimulated scholarly discussion of the issue with his Harvard Educational Review article, "How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?"[14] Jensen's article questioned remedial education for African-American children; he suggested their poor educational performance reflected an underlying genetic cause rather than lack of stimulation at home. Jensen continued to publish on the issue until his death in 2012. The Bell Curve debate Another revival of public debate followed the appearance of The Bell Curve (1994), a book by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, who strongly emphasized the societal effects of low IQ (focusing in most chapters strictly on the non-Hispanic white population of the United States). In 1994, a group of 52 researchers (mostly psychologists) signed an editorial statement "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" in response to the book. The Bell Curve also led to a 1995 report from the American Psychological Association, "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns", acknowledging a difference between mean IQ scores of whites and blacks as well as the absence of any adequate explanation of it, either environmental or genetic. The Bell Curve prompted the publication of several multiple-author books responding from a variety of points of view.[17][18] They include The Bell Curve Debate (1995), Inequality by Design: Cracking the Bell Curve Myth (1996) and a second edition of The Mismeasure of Man (1996) by Stephen Jay Gould.[18] Jensen's last book-length publication, The g Factor: The Science of Mental Ability was published a few years later in 1998. The review article "Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive Ability" by Rushton and Jensen was published in 2005. The article was followed by a series of responses, some in support, some critical.[7][20] Richard Nisbett, another psychologist who had also commented at the time, later included an amplified version of his critique as part of the book Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count (2009).[21] Rushton and Jensen in 2010 made a point-by-point reply to this thereafter.[22] A comprehensive review article on the issue was published in the journal American Psychologist in 2012. Some of the authors proposing genetic explanations for group differences have received funding from the Pioneer Fund, which was headed by Rushton until his death in 2012.[18][26] The Southern Poverty Law Center lists the Pioneer Fund as a hate group, citing the fund's history, its funding of race and intelligence research, and its connections with racist individuals. Other researchers have criticized the Pioneer Fund for promoting scientific racism, eugenics and white supremacy.[28][29][30] Validity of race and IQ Intelligence, IQ, g and IQ tests The concept of intelligence and the degree to which intelligence is measurable is a matter of debate. While there is some consensus about how to define intelligence, it is not universally accepted that it is something that can be unequivocally measured by a single figure.[31] A recurring criticism is that different societies value and promote different kinds of skills and that the concept of intelligence is therefore culturally variable and cannot be measured by the same criteria in different societies.[31] Consequently, some critics argue that proposed relationships to other variables are necessarily tentative.[32] In relation to the study of racial differences in IQ test scores it becomes a crucial question what exactly it is that IQ tests measure. Arthur Jensen was a proponent of the view that there is a correlation between scores on all the known types of IQ tests and that this correlation points to an underlying factor of general intelligence, or g. In most conceptions of g it is considered to be fairly fixed in a given individual and unresponsive to training or other environmental influences. In this view test score differences, especially in those tasks considered to be particularly "g-loaded" reflect the test takers innate capability. Other psychometricians argue that, while there may or may not be a general intelligence factor, performance on tests rely crucially on knowledge acquired through prior exposure to the types of tasks that such tests contain. This view would mean that tests cannot be expected to reflect only the innate abilities of a given individual, because the expression of potential will always be mediated by experience and cognitive habits. It also means that comparison of test scores from persons with widely different life experiences and cognitive habits is not an expression of their relative innate potentials. Race The majority of anthropologists today consider race to be a sociopolitical phenomenon rather than a biological one, a view supported by considerable genetics research.[36] The current mainstream view in the social sciences and biology is that race is a social construction based on folk ideologies that construct groups based on social disparities and superficial physical characteristics.[37] Sternberg, Grigorenko & Kidd (2005) state, "Race is a socially constructed concept, not a biological one. It derives from people's desire to classify."[32] The concept of human "races" as natural and separate divisions within the human species has also been rejected by the American Anthropological Association. The official position of the AAA, adopted in 1998, is that advances in scientific knowledge have made it "clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups" and that "any attempt to establish lines of division among biological populations [is] both arbitrary and subjective."[38] Race in studies of human intelligence is almost always determined using self-reports, rather than based on analyses of the genetic characteristics of the tested individuals. According to psychologist David Rowe, self-report is the preferred method for racial classification in studies of racial differences because classification based on genetic markers alone ignore the "cultural, behavioral, sociological, psychological, and epidemiological variables" that distinguish racial groups.[39] Hunt and Carlson write that "Nevertheless, self-identification is a surprisingly reliable guide to genetic composition. Tang et al. (2005) applied mathematical clustering techniques to sort genomic markers for over 3,600 people in the United States and Taiwan into four groups. There was almost perfect agreement between cluster assignment and individuals' self-reports of racial/ethnic identification as white, black, East Asian, or Latino."[40] Sternberg and Grigorenko disagree with Hunt and Carlson's interpretation of Tang, "Tang et al.'s point was that ancient geographic ancestry rather than current residence is associated with self-identification and not that such self-identification provides evidence for the existence of biological race."[41] Anthropologist C. Loring Brace[42] and geneticist Joseph Graves disagree with the idea that cluster analysis and the correlation between self-reported race and genetic ancestry support biological race.[43] They argue that while it is possible to find biological and genetic variation corresponding roughly to the groupings normally defined as races, this is true for almost all geographically distinct populations. The cluster structure of the genetic data is dependent on the initial hypotheses of the researcher and the populations sampled. When one samples continental groups, the clusters become continental; if one had chosen other sampling patterns, the clusters would be different. Kaplan 2011 therefore concludes that, while differences in particular allele frequencies can be used to identify populations that loosely correspond to the racial categories common in Western social discourse, the differences are of no more biological significance than the differences found between any human populations (e.g., the Spanish and Portuguese). Earl B. Hunt agrees that racial categories are defined by social conventions, though he points out that they also correlate with clusters of both genetic traits and cultural traits. Hunt explains that, due to this, racial IQ differences are caused by these variables that correlate with race, and race itself is rarely a causal variable. Researchers who study racial disparities in test scores are studying the relationship between the scores and the many race-related factors which could potentially affect performance. These factors include health, wealth, biological differences, and education.[44] Group differences The study of human intelligence is one of the most controversial topics in psychology. It remains unclear whether group differences in intelligence test scores are caused by heritable factors or by "other correlated demographic variables such as socioeconomic status, education level, and motivation."[45] Hunt and Carlson outlined four contemporary positions on differences in IQ based on race or ethnicity. The first is that these reflect real differences in average group intelligence, which is caused by a combination of environmental factors and heritable differences in brain function. A second position is that differences in average cognitive ability between races are caused entirely by social and/or environmental factors. A third position holds that differences in average cognitive ability between races do not exist, and that the differences in average test scores are the result of inappropriate use of the tests themselves. Finally, a fourth position is that either or both of the concepts of race and general intelligence are poorly constructed and therefore any comparisons between races are meaningless.[40] United States test scores In the United States, individuals identifying themselves as East Asian tend to have higher average IQ scores than do Caucasians, who, in turn, have higher average IQs than African Americans. Nevertheless, greater variation in IQ scores exists within each ethnic group than between them.[46] Rushton & Jensen (2005) wrote that, in the United States, self-identified blacks and whites have been the subjects of the greatest number of studies. They stated that the black-white IQ difference is about 15 to 18 points or 1 to 1.1 standard deviations (SDs), which implies that between 11 and 16 percent of the black population have an IQ above 100 (the general population median). According to Arthur Jensen and J. Philippe Rushton the black-white IQ difference is largest on those components of IQ tests that are claimed best to represent the general intelligence factor g.[47] The 1996 APA report "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns" and the 1994 editorial statement "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" gave more or less similar estimates.[48][49] Roth et al. (2001), in a review of the results of a total of 6,246,729 participants on other tests of cognitive ability or aptitude, found a difference in mean IQ scores between blacks and whites of 1.1 SD. Consistent results were found for college and university application tests such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (N = 2.4 million) and Graduate Record Examination (N = 2.3 million), as well as for tests of job applicants in corporate sections (N = 0.5 million) and in the military (N = 0.4 million).[50] East Asians have tended to score relatively higher on visuospatial subtests with lower scores in verbal subtests while Ashkenazi Jews score higher in verbal subtests with lower scores in visuospatial subtests. The few Amerindian populations who have been systematically tested, including Arctic Natives, tend to score worse on average than white populations but better on average than black populations.[50] The racial groups studied in the United States and Europe are not necessarily representative samples for populations in other parts of the world. Cultural differences may also factor in IQ test performance and outcomes. Therefore, results in the United States and Europe do not necessarily correlate to results in other populations.[51] Global variation of IQ scores A number of studies have compared average IQ scores between the world's nations, finding patterns of difference between continental populations similar to those associated with race. Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen have argued that populations in the third world, particularly populations in Africa, tend to have limited intelligence because of their genetic composition and that, consequently, education cannot be effective in creating social and economic development in third world countries. Lynn and Vanhanen's studies have been severely criticized for relying on low quality data and for choosing sources in ways that seem to be biased severely towards underestimating the average IQ potential of developing nations, particularly in Africa.[55] Nonetheless there is a general consensus that the average IQ in developing countries is lower than in developed countries, but subsequent research has favored environmental explanations for this fact, such as lack of basic infrastructure related to health and education. In the 2002 book IQ and the Wealth of Nations, and IQ and Global Inequality in 2006, Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen created estimates of average IQs for 113 nations. They estimated IQs of 79 other nations based on neighboring nations or via other means. They saw a consistent correlation between national development and national IQ averages. They found the highest national IQs among Western and East Asian developed nations and the lowest national IQs in the world's least developed nations among the indigenous peoples in the regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America.[56] In a meta-analysis of studies of IQ estimates in Sub-Saharan Africa, Wicherts, Dolan & van der Maas (2009, p. 10) concluded that Lynn and Vanhanen had relied on unsystematic methodology by failing to publish their criteria for including or excluding studies. They found that Lynn and Vanhanen's exclusion of studies had depressed their IQ estimate for sub-Saharan Africa, and that including studies excluded in "IQ and Global Inequality" resulted in average IQ of 82 for sub-Saharan Africa, lower than the average in Western countries, but higher than Lynn and Vanhanen's estimate of 67. Wicherts at al. conclude that this difference is likely due to sub-Saharan Africa having limited access to modern advances in education, nutrition and health care. A 2010 systematic review by the same research team, along with Jerry S. Carlson, found that compared to American norms, the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans was about 80. The same review concluded that the Flynn effect had not yet taken hold in sub-Saharan Africa. A 2007 meta-analysis by Rindermann found many of the same groupings and correlations found by Lynn and Vanhanen, with the lowest scores in sub-Saharan Africa, and a correlation of .60 between cognitive skill and GDP per capita. Hunt (2010, pp. 437–439) considers Rindermann's analysis to be much more reliable than Lynn and Vanhanen's. By measuring the relationship between educational data and social wellbeing over time, this study also performed a causal analysis, finding that when nations invest in education this leads to increased well-being later on. Kamin (2006) has also criticized Lynn and Vanhanen's work on the IQs of sub-Saharan Africans. Wicherts, Borsboom & Dolan (2010) argue that studies reporting support for evolutionary theories of intelligence based on national IQ data suffer from multiple fatal methodological flaws. For example, they state that such studies "...assume that the Flynn Effect is either nonexistent or invariant with respect to different regions of the world, that there have been no migrations and climatic changes over the course of evolution, and that there have been no trends over the last century in indicators of reproductive strategies (e.g., declines in fertility and infant mortality)." They also showed that a strong degree of confounding exists between national IQs and current national development status. Similarly, Pesta & Poznanski (2014) showed that the average temperature of a given U.S. state is strongly associated with that state's average IQ and other well-being variables, despite the fact that evolution has not had enough time to operate on non-Native American residents of the United States. They also noted that this association persisted even after controlling for race, and concluded that "Evolution is therefore not necessary for temperature and IQ/well-being to co-vary meaningfully across geographic space." Flynn effect and the closing gap For the past century raw scores on IQ tests have been rising; this score increase is known as the "Flynn effect", named after James R. Flynn. In the United States, the increase was continuous and approximately linear from the earliest years of testing to about 1998 when the gains stopped and some tests even showed decreasing test scores. For example, in the United States the average scores of blacks on some IQ tests in 1995 were the same as the scores of whites in 1945.[63] As one pair of academics phrased it, "the typical African American today probably has a slightly higher IQ than the grandparents of today's average white American."[64] Flynn has argued that given that these changes take place between one generation and the next it is highly unlikely that genetic factors could account for the increasing scores, which must then be caused by environmental factors. The Flynn Effect has often been used as an argument that the racial gap in IQ test scores must be environmental too, but this is not generally agreed – others have asserted that the two may have entirely different causes. A meta-analysis by Te Nijenhuis and van der Flier (2013) concluded that the Flynn effect and group differences in intelligence were likely to have different causes. They stated that the Flynn effect is caused primarily by environmental factors and that it's unlikely these same environmental factors play an important role in explaining group differences in IQ.[65] The importance of the Flynn effect in the debate over the causes for the IQ gap lies in demonstrating that environmental factors may cause changes in test scores on the scale of 1 SD. This had previously been doubted. A separate phenomenon from the Flynn effect has been the discovery that the IQ gap has been gradually closing over the last decades of the 20th century, as black test-takers increased their average scores relative to white test-takers. For instance, Vincent reported in 1991 that the black-white IQ gap was decreasing among children, but that it was remaining constant among adults. Similarly, a 2006 study by Dickens and Flynn estimated that the difference between mean scores of blacks and whites closed by about 5 or 6 IQ points between 1972 and 2002, a reduction of about one-third. In the same period, the educational achievement disparity also diminished.[68] However, this was challenged by Rushton & Jensen who claim the difference remains stable. In a 2006 study, Murray agreed with Dickens and Flynn that there has been a narrowing of the difference; "Dickens' and Flynn's estimate of 3–6 IQ points from a base of about 16–18 points is a useful, though provisional, starting point". But he argued that this has stalled and that there has been no further narrowing for people born after the late 1970s. A subsequent study by Murray, based on the Woodcock–Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities, estimated that the black-white IQ difference decreased by about one-half of one standard deviation from those born in the 1920s to those born in the second half of the 1960s and early 1970s. Recent reviews by Flynn and Dickens (2006), Mackintosh (2011), and Nisbett et al. 2012 accept the gradual closing of the gap as a fact. In his review of the historical trends, Hunt (2010, p. 411) states: "There is some variety in the results, but not a great deal. The African American means are about 1 standard deviation unit (15 points on the IQ scale) below the white means, and the Hispanic means fall in between." Some studies reviewed by Hunt (2010, p. 418) found that rise in the average achievement of African Americans was caused by a reduction in the number of African American students in the lowest range of scores without a corresponding increase in the number of students in the highest ranges. A 2012 review of the literature found that the IQ gap had diminished by 0.33 standard deviations since first reported. A 2013 analysis of the National Assessment of Educational Progress found that from 1971 to 2008, the size of the black–white IQ gap in the United States decreased from 16.33 to 9.94 IQ points. It has also concluded however that, while IQ means are continuing to rise in all ethnic groups, this growth is occurring more slowly among 17-year-old students than among younger students and the black-white IQ gap is no longer narrowing. As of 2008, a study published in 2013 by Heiner Rindermann, Stefan Pinchelmann, and James Thompson have estimated the IQ means of 17-year-old black, white, and Hispanic students to range respectively from 90.45–94.15, 102.29–104.57 and 92.30–95.90 points. They explain that the gap may persist due to the crack epidemic, the degradation of African-American family structure, the rise of fraud in the educational system (especially with respect to No Child Left Behind), the decrease in unskilled real wages and employment among African-Americans due to globalization and minimum wage increases, differences in parental practices (such as breastfeeding or reading to children), and "environmental conditions shaped by [African-Americans] themselves." To resolve this, they ultimately recommend the reestablishment of "meritoric principles" and "blindly graded objective central exams," as opposed to "ethnically based policies," in education.[74] Environmental influences on group differences in IQ The following environmental factors are some of those suggested as explaining a portion of the differences in average IQ between races. These factors are not mutually exclusive with one another, and some may, in fact, contribute directly to others. Furthermore, the relationship between genetics and environmental factors may be complicated. For example, the differences in socioeconomic environment for a child may be due to differences in genetic IQ for the parents, and the differences in average brain size between races could be the result of nutritional factors. All recent reviews agree that some environmental factors that are unequally distributed between racial groups have been shown to affect intelligence in ways that could contribute to the test score gap. However, currently, the question is whether these factors can account for the entire gap between white and black test scores, or only part of it. One group of scholars, including Richard E. Nisbett, James R. Flynn, Joshua Aronson, Diane Halpern, William Dickens, Eric Turkheimer (2012) have argued that the environmental factors so far demonstrated are sufficient to account for the entire gap. Nicholas Mackintosh (2011) considers this a reasonable argument, but argues that probably it is impossible to ever know for sure; another group including Earl B. Hunt (2010), Arthur Jensen, J. Philippe Rushton and Richard Lynn have argued that this is impossible. Jensen and Rushton consider that it may account for as little as 20% of the gap. Meanwhile, while Hunt considers this a vast overstatement, he nonetheless considers it likely that some portion of the gap will eventually be shown to be caused by genetic factors. Health and nutrition at least 10 µg/dL. Black and Hispanic children have much higher levels than white children. A 10 µg/dL increase in blood lead at 24 months is associated with a 5.8-point decline in IQ.[76] Although the Geometric Mean Blood Lead Levels (GM BLL) are declining, a CDC report (2002) states that: "However, the GM BLL for non-Hispanic black children remains higher than that for Mexican-American and non-Hispanic white children, indicating that differences in risk for exposure still persist."[77] Percentage of children aged 1–5 with blood lead levels10 µg/dL. Black and Hispanic children have much higher levels than white children. A 10 µg/dL increase in blood lead at 24 months is associated with a 5.8-point decline in IQ.Although the Geometric Mean Blood Lead Levels (GM BLL) are declining, a CDC report (2002) states that: "However, the GM BLL for non-Hispanic black children remains higher than that for Mexican-American and non-Hispanic white children, indicating that differences in risk for exposure still persist." Environmental factors including childhood lead exposure,[76] low rates of breast feeding,[78] and poor nutrition[79][80] can significantly affect cognitive development and functioning. For example, childhood exposure to lead, associated with homes in poorer areas[81] causes an average IQ drop of 7 points,[82] and iodine deficiency causes a fall, on average, of 12 IQ points.[83][84] Such impairments may sometimes be permanent, sometimes be partially or wholly compensated for by later growth. The first two years of life is the critical time for malnutrition, the consequences of which are often irreversible and include poor cognitive development, educability, and future economic productivity.[85] The African American population of the United States is statistically more likely to be exposed to many detrimental environmental factors such as poorer neighborhoods, schools, nutrition, and prenatal and postnatal health care.[86][87] Mackintosh points out that for American blacks infant mortality is about twice as high as for whites, and low birthweight is twice as prevalent. At the same time white mothers are twice as likely to breastfeed their infants, and breastfeeding is highly correlated with IQ for low birthweight infants. In this way a wide number of health related factors that influence IQ are unequally distributed between the two groups. The Copenhagen consensus in 2004 stated that lack of both iodine and iron has been implicated in impaired brain development, and this can affect enormous numbers of people: it is estimated that one-third of the total global population are affected by iodine deficiency. In developing countries, it is estimated that 40% of children aged four and under suffer from anaemia because of insufficient iron in their diets.[89] Other scholars have found that simply the standard of nutrition has a significant effect on population intelligence, and that the Flynn effect may be caused by increasing nutrition standards across the world.[90] James Flynn has himself argued against this view.[91] Some recent research has argued that the retardation caused in brain development by infectious diseases, many of which are more prevalent in non-white populations, may be an important factor in explaining the differences in IQ between different regions of the world.[92] The findings of this research, showing the correlation between IQ, race and infectious diseases was also shown to apply to the IQ gap in the US, suggesting that this may be an important environmental factor.[93] A 2013 meta-analysis by the World Health Organization found that, after controlling for maternal IQ, breastfeeding was associated with IQ gains of 2.19 points. The authors suggest that this relationship is causal but state that the practical significance of this gain is debatable; however, they highlight one study suggesting an association between breastfeeding and academic performance in Brazil, where "breastfeeding duration does not present marked variability by socioeconomic position."[94] Colen and Ramey (2014) similarly find that controlling for sibling comparisons within families, rather than between families, reduces the correlation between breastfeeding status and WISC IQ scores by nearly a third, but further find the relationship between breastfeeding duration and WISC IQ scores to be insignificant. They suggest that "much of the beneficial long-term effects typically attributed to breastfeeding, per say, may primarily be due to selection pressures into infant feeding practices along key demographic characteristics such as race and socioeconomic status."[95] Reichman estimates that no more than 3 to 4% of the black-white IQ gap can be explained by black-white disparities in low birth weight.[96] Education Several studies have proposed that a large part of the gap can be attributed to differences in quality of education.[97] Racial discrimination in education has been proposed as one possible cause of differences in educational quality between races.[98] According to a paper by Hala Elhoweris, Kagendo Mutua, Negmeldin Alsheikh and Pauline Holloway, teachers' referral decisions for students to participate in gifted and talented educational programs were influenced in part by the students' ethnicity.[99] The Abecedarian Early Intervention Project, an intensive early childhood education project, was also able to bring about an average IQ gain of 4.4 points at age 21 in the black children who participated in it compared to controls.[78] Arthur Jensen agreed that the Abecedarian project demonstrates that education can have a significant effect on IQ, but also said that no educational program thus far has been able to reduce the black-white IQ gap by more than a third, and that differences in education are thus unlikely to be its only cause.[100] Rushton and Jensen argue that long-term follow-up of the Head Start Program found large immediate gains for blacks and whites but that these were quickly lost for the blacks although some remained for whites. They argue that also other more intensive and prolonged educational interventions have not produced lasting effects on IQ or scholastic performance.[47] Nisbett argues that they ignore studies such as Campbell & Ramey (1994) which found that at the age 12, 87% of black infants exposed to an intervention had IQs in the normal range (above 85) compared to 56% of controls, and none of the intervention-exposed children were mildly retarded compared to 7% of controls. Other early intervention programs have shown IQ effects in the range of 4–5 points, which are sustained until at least age 8–15. Effects on academic achievement can also be substantial. Nisbett also argues that not only early age intervention can be effective, citing other successful intervention studies from infancy to college.[101] A series of studies by Joseph Fagan and Cynthia Holland measured the effect of prior exposure to the kind of cognitive tasks posed in IQ tests on test performance. Assuming that the IQ gap was the result of lower exposure to tasks using the cognitive functions usually found in IQ tests among African American test takes, they prepared a group of African Americans in this type of tasks before taking an IQ test. The researchers found that there was no subsequent difference in performance between the African-Americans and white test takers.[102][103] Daley and Onwuegbuzie conclude that Fagan and Holland demonstrate that "differences in knowledge between blacks and whites for intelligence test items can be erased when equal opportunity is provided for exposure to the information to be tested". A similar argument is made by David Marks who argues that IQ differences correlate well with differences in literacy suggesting that developing literacy skills through education causes an increase in IQ test performance.[105][106] A 2003 study found that two variables — stereotype threat and the degree of educational attainment of children's fathers — partially explained the black-white gap in cognitive ability test scores, undermining the hereditarian view that they stemmed from immutable genetic factors.[107] Socioeconomic environment Different aspects of the socioeconomic environment in which children are raised have been shown to correlate with part of the IQ gap, but they do not account for the entire gap. According to a 2006 review, these factors account for slightly less than half of one standard deviation of the gap.[109] Generally the difference between mean test scores of blacks and whites is not eliminated when individuals and groups are matched on socioeconomic status (SES), suggesting that the relationship between IQ and SES is not simply one in which SES determines IQ. Rather it may be the case that differences in intelligence, particularly parental intelligence, may also cause differences in SES, making separating the two factors difficult.[48] Hunt (2010, p. 428) summarises data[clarification needed] showing that, jointly, SES and parental IQ account for the full gap (in populations of young children, after controlling parental IQ and parental SES, the gap is not statistically different from zero). He argues the SES-linked components reflect parental occupation status, mother's verbal comprehension score and parent-child interaction quality. Hunt also reviews data showing that the correlation between home environment and IQ becomes weaker with age.[citation needed] Hart and Risley argue that in welfare, working-class, and professional families, children hear a large disparity in the amount of language (between 13 million and 45 million words) in the age range of 0–3, and that by age 9 these differences led to large differences in child outcomes.[110] Other research has focussed on different causes of variation within low SES and high SES groups.[111][112][113] In the US, among low-SES groups, genetic differences account for a smaller proportion variance in IQ than among higher SES populations.[114] Such effects are predicted by the bioecological hypothesis – that genotypes are transformed into phenotypes through nonadditive synergistic effects of the environment.[115] Nisbett et al. (2012) suggest that high SES individuals are more likely to be able to develop their full biological potential, whereas low SES individuals are likely to be hindered in their development by adverse environmental conditions. The same review also points out that adoption studies generally are biased towards including only high and high middle SES adoptive families, meaning that they will tend to overestimate average genetic effects. They also note that studies of adoption from lower-class homes to middle-class homes have shown that such children experience a 12–18 pt gain in IQ relative to children who remain in low SES homes. A 2015 study found that environmental factors (namely, family income, maternal education, maternal verbal ability/knowledge, learning materials in the home, parenting factors (maternal sensitivity, maternal warmth and acceptance, and safe physical environment), child birth order, and child birth weight) accounted for the black-white gap in cognitive ability test scores. Test bias A number of studies have reached the conclusion that IQ tests may be biased against certain groups.[117][118][119][120] The validity and reliability of IQ scores obtained from outside the United States and Europe have been questioned, in part because of the inherent difficulty of comparing IQ scores between cultures.[121][122] Several researchers have argued that cultural differences limit the appropriateness of standard IQ tests in non-industrialized communities.[123][124] A 1996 report by the American Psychological Association states that intelligence can be difficult to compare across culture, and notes that differing familiarity with test materials can produce substantial difference in test results; it also says that tests are accurate predictors of future achievement for black and white Americans, and are in that sense unbiased.[48] The view that tests accurately predict future educational attainment is reinforced by Nicholas Mackintosh in his 1998 book IQ and Human Intelligence,[125] and by a 1999 literature review by Brown, Reynolds & Whitaker (1999). James R. Flynn, surveying studies on the topic, notes that the weight and presence of many test questions depends on what sorts of information and modes of thinking are culturally-valued.[126] Stereotype threat and minority status Stereotype threat is the fear that one's behavior will confirm an existing stereotype of a group with which one identifies or by which one is defined; this fear may in turn lead to an impairment of performance.[127] Testing situations that highlight the fact that intelligence is being measured tend to lower the scores of individuals from racial-ethnic groups who already score lower on average or are expected to score lower. Stereotype threat conditions cause larger than expected IQ differences among groups.[128] Psychometrician Nicholas Mackintosh considers that there is little doubt that the effects of stereotype threat contribute to the IQ gap between blacks and whites. A large number of studies have shown that systemically disadvantaged minorities, such as the African American minority of the United States generally perform worse in the educational system and in intelligence tests than the majority groups or less disadvantaged minorities such as immigrant or "voluntary" minorities.[48] The explanation of these findings may be that children of caste-like minorities, due to the systemic limitations of their prospects of social advancement, do not have "effort optimism", i.e. they do not have the confidence that acquiring the skills valued by majority society, such as those skills measured by IQ tests, is worthwhile. They may even deliberately reject certain behaviors that are seen as "acting white." Research published in 1997 indicates that part of the black-white gap in cognitive ability test scores is due to racial differences in test motivation.[132] Attempts to replicate studies evincing significant effects of stereotype threat however have not yielded the same results. In 2004 Sackett et al. found that eliminating stereotype threat does not eliminate the racial test performance gap, and in 2005 Tyson et al. found African Americans to have motivation similar to or even better than that of white Americans.[133][134] Self-affirmation exercises promoted by research scientists such as Geoffrey L. Cohen have not been shown to be effective by attempts to replicate his studies purporting them to be successful.[135] A 2015 meta-analysis conducted by Flore & Wicherts of studies on the relationship between gender and stereotype threat found the observed estimates to be inflated by publication bias, arguing the true effect to be most likely near zero.[136] Research into the possible genetic influences on test score differences Ongoing research aims to understand the contribution of genes to differences in intelligence. Currently there is no non-circumstantial evidence that the test score gap has a genetic component, although some researchers believe that the existing circumstantial evidence makes it plausible to believe that hard evidence for a genetic component will eventually appear. Growing evidence indicates that environmental factors, not genetic ones, are more important in explaining the racial IQ gap. Several lines of investigation have been followed in the attempt to ascertain whether there is a genetic component to the test score gap as well as its relative contribution to the magnitude of the gap. Genetics of race and intelligence Geneticist Alan R. Templeton argues that the question about the possible genetic effects on the test score gap is muddled by the general focus on "race" rather than on populations defined by gene frequency or by geographical proximity, and by the general insistence on phrasing the question in terms of heritability.[141] Templeton points out that racial groups neither represent sub-species nor distinct evolutionary lineages, and that therefore there is no basis for making claims about the general intelligence of races.[141] From this point of view the search for possible genetic influences on the black-white test score gap is a priori flawed, because there is no genetic material shared by all Africans or by all Europeans. Mackintosh (2011) points out that by using genetic cluster analysis to correlate gene frequencies with continental populations it could possibly be the case that African populations had a higher frequency of certain genetic variants that contribute to an average lower intelligence. Such a hypothetical situation could hold without all Africans carrying the same genes or belonging to a single Evolutionary lineage. According to Mackintosh, a biological basis for the gap thus cannot be ruled out on a priori grounds. Intelligence is a polygenic trait. This means that intelligence is under the influence of several genes, possibly several thousand. The effect of most individual genetic variants on intelligence is thought to be very small, well below 1% of the variance in g. Current studies using quantitative trait loci have yielded little success in the search for genes influencing intelligence. Robert Plomin is confident that QTLs responsible for the variation in IQ scores exist, but due to their small effect sizes, more powerful tools of analysis will be required to detect them.[142] Others assert that no useful answers can be reasonably expected from such research before an understanding of the relation between DNA and human phenotypes emerges.[87] Several candidate genes have been proposed to have a relationship with intelligence.[143][144] However, a review of candidate genes for intelligence published in Deary, Johnson & Houlihan (2009) failed to find evidence of an association between these genes and general intelligence, stating "there is still almost no replicated evidence concerning the individual genes, which have variants that contribute to intelligence differences".[145] In 2001, a review in the Journal of Black Psychology refuted eight major premises on which the hereditarian view regarding race and intelligence is based.[146] A 2005 literature review article by Sternberg, Grigorenko and Kidd stated that no gene has been shown to be linked to intelligence, "so attempts to provide a compelling genetic link of race to intelligence are not feasible at this time". Hunt (2010, p. 447) and Mackintosh (2011, p. 344) concurred, both scholars noting that while several environmental factors have been shown to influence the IQ gap, the evidence for a genetic influence has been circumstantial, and according to Mackintosh negligible. Mackintosh however suggests that it may never become possible to account satisfyingly for the relative contributions of genetic and environmental factors. The 2012 review by Nisbett et al. (2012) concluded that "Almost no genetic polymorphisms have been discovered that are consistently associated with variation in IQ in the normal range". Hunt and several other researchers however maintain that genetic causes cannot be ruled out, and that new evidence may yet show a genetic contribution to the gap. Hunt concurs with Rushton and Jensen who considered the 100% environmental hypothesis to be impossible. Nonetheless, Nisbett and colleagues (2012) consider the entire IQ gap to be explained by the environmental factors that have thus far been demonstrated to influence it, and Mackintosh does not find this view to be unreasonable. Heritability within and between groups An environmental factor that varies between groups but not within groups can cause group differences in a trait that is otherwise 100 percent heritable Twin studies of intelligence have reported high heritability values. However, these studies are based on questionable assumptions. When used in the context of human behavior genetics, the term "heritability" is highly misleading, as it does not convey any information about the relative importance of genetic or environmental factors on the development of a given trait, nor does it convey the extent to which that trait is genetically determined. Arguments in support of a genetic explanation of racial differences in IQ are sometimes fallacious. For instance, hereditarians have sometimes cited the failure of known environmental factors to account for such differences, or the high heritability of intelligence within races, as evidence that racial differences in IQ are genetic.[150] Psychometricians have found that intelligence is substantially heritable within populations, with 30–50% of variance in IQ scores in early childhood being attributable to genetic factors in analyzed US populations, increasing to 75–80% by late adolescence.[48][145] In biology heritability is defined as the ratio of variation attributable to genetic differences in an observable trait to the trait's total observable variation. The heritability of a trait describes the proportion of variation in the trait that is attributable to genetic factors within a particular population. A heritability of 1 indicates that variation correlates fully with genetic variation and a heritability of 0 indicates that there is no correlation between the trait and genes at all. In psychological testing, heritability tends to be understood as the degree of correlation between the results of a test taker and those of their biological parents. However, since high heritability is simply a correlation between traits and genes, it does not describe the causes of heritability which in humans can be either genetic or environmental. Therefore, a high heritability measure does not imply that a trait is genetic or unchangeable, however, as environmental factors that affect all group members equally will not be measured by heritability and the heritability of a trait may also change over time in response to changes in the distribution of genes and environmental factors.[48] High heritability also doesn't imply that all of the heritability is genetically determined, but can also be due to environmental differences that affect only a certain genetically defined group (indirect heritability).[151] The figure to the left demonstrates how heritability works. In both gardens the difference between tall and short cornstalks is 100% heritable as cornstalks that are genetically disposed for growing tall will become taller than those without this disposition, but the difference in height between the cornstalks to the left and those on the right is 100% environmental as it is due to different nutrients being supplied to the two gardens. Hence the causes of differences within a group and between groups may not be the same, even when looking at traits that are highly heritable.[151] In his criticism of the Bell Curve, Noam Chomsky further illustrated this with the example of women wearing earrings: To borrow an example from Ned Block, "some years ago when only women wore earrings, the heritability of having an earring was high because differences in whether a person had an earring was due to a chromosomal difference, XX vs. XY." No one has yet suggested that wearing earrings, or ties, is "in our genes," an inescapable fate that environment cannot influence, "dooming the liberal notion."[152] In regards to the IQ gap the question becomes whether racial groups can be shown to be influenced by different environmental factors that may account for the observed differences between them. Jensen originally argued that given the high heritability of IQ the only way that the IQ gap could be explained as caused by the environment would be if it could be shown that all blacks were subject to a single "x-factor" which affected no white populations while affecting all black populations equally.[153] Jensen considered the existence of such an x-factor to be extremely improbable, but Flynn's discovery of the Flynn effect showed that in spite of high heritability environmental factors could cause considerable disparities in IQ between generations of the same population, showing that the existence of such an x-factor was not only possible but real. Jensen has also argued that heritability of traits rises with age as the genetic potential of individuals becomes expressed. He sees this as related to the fact that the IQ gap between white and black test takers has been shown to appear gradually, with the gap widening as cohorts reach adulthood. This he sees as a further argument in favor of Spearman's hypothesis (see section below). In contrast, Dickens and Flynn argued that the conventional interpretation ignores the role of feedback between factors, such as those with a small initial IQ advantage, genetic or environmental, seeking out more stimulating environments which will gradually greatly increase their advantage, which, as one consequence in their alternative model, would mean that the "heritability" figure is only in part due to direct effects of genotype on IQ. Today researchers such as Hunt (2010), Nisbett et al. (2012) and Mackintosh (2011) consider that rather than a single factor accounting for the entire gap, probably many different environmental factors differ systematically between the environments of white and black people converge to create part of the gap and perhaps all of it. They argue that it does not make sense to talk about a single universal heritability figure for IQ, rather, they state, heritability of IQ varies between and within groups. They point specifically to studies showing a higher heritability of test scores in white and medium-high SES families, but considerably lower heritability for black and low-SES families. This they interpret to mean that children who grow up with limited resources do not get to develop their full genetic potential. Multiple studies have been conducted over the past several decades to survey scientific estimates on the heritability of the IQ gap. A review by Snydermann and Rothman in 1988 found that 45% of the scientists they questioned believed the gap to be "a product of genetic and environmental variation," 15% and 1% respectively "entirely to environmental" and "genetic variation," while the remaining 38% either declined to answer or stated that the evidence was inconclusive.[158] The heritability of intelligence was estimated on average to be 59.6% for white Americans and 57.0% for black Americans among those who answered that the evidence was sufficiently conclusive.[159] The Wall Street Journal published an editorial by Linda Gottfredson in 1994, signed by 52 professors specializing in intelligence and allied fields, that estimated the heritability of individual variation to range between 40–80%, but also stating that "there is no definitive answer" to explain the racial gap.[160] Social psychologist Donald T. Campbell criticized the report, arguing that it overstated the plausibility of genetic explanations and underestimated the extent of environmental differences between races.[161] A 1995 report by the APA stated that there is more plausible evidence for an environmental than for a genetic explanation, but that there was "no adequate explanation" for the black-white IQ gap.[162][163] In a 2013 followup on Snyderman & Rothman, Rindermann et al. found the average and median estimates of the black-white IQ gap to be heritable by 47% and 50% respectively among surveyed scientists who believed that the available evidence allowed for a reasonable estimate. This survey however yielded a response rate of 18% (228 participants) compared to Snyderman & Rothman's 65% (661 participants).[164] Spearman's hypothesis Spearman's hypothesis states that the magnitude of the black-white difference in tests of cognitive ability is entirely or mainly a function of the extent to which a test measures general mental ability, or g. The hypothesis was first formalized by Arthur Jensen who devised the statistical Method of Correlated Vectors to test it. Jensen holds that if Spearman's hypothesis holds true then some cognitive tasks have a higher g-load than others, and that these tasks are exactly the tasks in which the gap between black and white test takers are greatest. Jensen, and other psychometricians such as Rushton and Lynn, take this to show that the cause of g and the cause of the gap are the same—in their view genetic differences. Mackintosh (2011, pp. 338–39) acknowledges that Jensen and Rushton have shown a modest correlation between g-loading, heritability, and the test score gap, but he does not accept that this demonstrates a genetic origin of the gap. He points out that it is exactly in those the tests that Rushton and Jensen consider to have the highest g-loading and heritability such as the Wechsler that has seen the highest increases due to the Flynn effect. This suggests that they are also the most sensitive to environmental changes. And in turn, if the highly g-loaded tests are both more liable to environmental influences and as Jensen argues, the ones where the black-white gap is most pronounced, it suggests in fact contrary to Jensen's argument that the gap is most likely caused by environmental factors. Mackintosh also argues that Spearman's hypothesis, which he considers to be likely to be correct, simply shows that the test score gap is based on whatever cognitive faculty is central to intelligence, but not what this factor is. Nisbett et al. (2012, p. 146) make the same point, noting also that the increase in the IQ scores of black test takers is necessarily also an increase in g. James Flynn (2012, pp. 140–1) argues that there is an inherent flaw in Jensen's argument that the correlation between g-loadings, test scores and heritability support a genetic cause of the gap. He points out that as the difficulty of a task increases a low performing group will naturally fall further behind, and heritability will therefore also naturally increase. The same holds for increases in performance which will first affect the least difficult tasks, but only gradually affect the most difficult ones. Flynn thus sees the correlation between in g-loading and the test score gap to offer no clue to the cause of the gap. Hunt (2010, p. 415) states that many of conclusions of Jensen, and his colleagues rest on the validity of Spearman's hypothesis, and the method of correlated vectors used to test it. Hunt points out that other researchers have found this method of calculation to produce false positive results, and that other statistical methods should be used instead. According to Hunt, Jensen and Rushton's frequent claim that Spearman's hypothesis should be regarded as empirical fact does not hold, and that new studies based on better statistical methods would be required to confirm or reject the hypothesis that the correlation between g-loading, heritability and the IQ gap is due to IQ gaps consisting mostly of g. Adoption studies A number of studies have been done on the effect of similar rearing conditions on children from different races. The hypothesis is that by investigating whether black children adopted into white families demonstrated gains in IQ test scores relative to black children reared in black families. Depending on whether their test scores are more similar to their biological or adoptive families, that could be interpreted as either supporting a genetic or an environmental hypothesis. The main point of critique in studies like these however is whether the environment of black children—even when raised in white families—is truly comparable to the environment of white children. Several reviews of the adoption study literature has pointed out that it is perhaps impossible to avoid confounding of biological and environmental factors in this type of studies. Given the differing heritability estimates in medium-high SES and low-SES families, Nisbett et al. (2012, pp. 134) argue that adoption studies on the whole tend to overstate the role of genetics because they represent a restricted set of environments, mostly in the medium-high SES range. The Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study (1976) examined the IQ test scores of 122 adopted children and 143 nonadopted children reared by advantaged white families. The children were restudied ten years later.[167] The study found higher IQ for whites compared to blacks, both at age 7 and age 17.[167] Rushton & Jensen (2005) cite the Minnesota study as providing support to a genetic explanation. Nonetheless, acknowledging the existence of confounding factors, Scarr and Weinberg the authors of the original study, did not themselves consider that it provided support for either the hereditarian or environmentalist view. Three other adoption studies found contrary evidence to the Minnesota study, lending support to a mostly environmental hypothesis: Eyferth (1961) studied the out-of-wedlock children of black and white soldiers stationed in Germany after World War 2 and then raised by white German mothers and found no significant differences. Tizard et al. (1972) studied black (West Indian), white, and mixed-race children raised in British long-stay residential nurseries. Two out of three tests found no significant differences. One test found higher scores for non-whites. Moore (1986) compared black and mixed-race children adopted by either black or white middle-class families in the United States. Moore observed that 23 black and interracial children raised by white parents had a significantly higher mean score than 23 age-matched children raised by black parents (117 vs 104), and argued that differences in early socialization explained these differences. Rushton and Jensen have argued that unlike the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study, these studies did not retest the children post-adolescence when heritability of IQ would presumably be higher.[22][47] Nisbett (2009, p. 226) however point out that the difference in heritability between ages 7 and 17 are quite small, and that consequently this is no reason to disregard Moore's findings. Frydman and Lynn (1989) showed a mean IQ of 119 for Korean infants adopted by Belgian families. After correcting for the Flynn effect, the IQ of the adopted Korean children was still 10 points higher than the indigenous Belgian children.[172] Reviewing the evidence from adoption studies Mackintosh considers the studies by Tizard and Eyferth to be inconclusive, and the Minnesota study to be consistent only with a partial genetic hypothesis. On the whole he finds that environmental and genetic variables remain confounded and considers evidence from adoption studies inconclusive on the whole, and fully compatible with a 100% environmental explanation. Racial admixture studies Most people have an ancestry from different geographic regions, particularly African Americans typically have ancestors from both Africa and Europe, with, on average, 20% of their genome inherited from European ancestors.[173] If racial IQ gaps have a partially genetic basis, one might expect blacks with a higher degree of European ancestry to score higher on IQ tests than blacks with less European ancestry, because the genes inherited from European ancestors would likely include some genes with a positive effect on IQ. Geneticist Alan Templeton has argued that an experiment based on the Mendelian "common garden" design where specimens with different hybrid compositions are subjected to the same environmental influences, would be the only way to definitively show a causal relation between genes and IQ. Summarizing the findings of admixture studies, he concludes that it has shown no significant correlation between any cognitive and the degree of African or European ancestry. Studies have employed different ways of measuring or approximating relative degrees of ancestry from Africa and Europe. One set of studies have used skin color as a measure, and other studies have used blood groups. Loehlin (2000) surveys the literature and argues that the blood groups studies may be seen as providing some support to the genetic hypothesis, even though the correlation between ancestry and IQ was quite low. He finds that studies by Eyferth (1961), Willerman, Naylor & Myrianthopoulos (1970) did not find a correlation between degree of African/European ancestry and IQ. The latter study did find a difference based on the race of the mother, with children of white mothers with black fathers scoring higher than children of black mothers and white fathers. Loehlin considers that such a finding is compatible with either a genetic or an environmental cause. All in all Loehlin finds admixture studies inconclusive and recommends more research. Another study cited by Rushton & Jensen (2005), and by Nisbett et al. (2012), was Moore (1986) study which found that adopted mixed-race children's has test scores identical to children with two black parents—receiving no apparent "benefit" from their white ancestry. Rushton and Jensen find admixture studies to have provided overall support for a genetic explanation though this view is not shared by Loehlin (2000), Nisbett (2009), Hunt (2010), Mackintosh (2011), nor by Nisbett et al. (2012). Reviewing the evidence from admixture studies Hunt (2010) considers it to be inconclusive because of too many uncontrolled variables. Mackintosh (2011, p. 338) quotes a statement by Nisbett (2009) to the effect that admixture studies have not provided a shred of evidence in favor of a genetic basis for the gap. Mental chronometry Mental chronometry measures the elapsed time between the presentation of a sensory stimulus and the subsequent behavioral response by the participant. This reaction time (RT) is considered a measure of the speed and efficiency with which the brain processes information.[176] Scores on most types of RT tasks tend to correlate with scores on standard IQ tests as well as with g, and no relationship has been found between RT and any other psychometric factors independent of g.[176] The strength of the correlation with IQ varies from one RT test to another, but Hans Eysenck gives 0.40 as a typical correlation under favorable conditions.[177] According to Jensen individual differences in RT have a substantial genetic component, and heritability is higher for performance on tests that correlate more strongly with IQ.[178] Nisbett argues that some studies have found correlations closer to 0.2, and that the correlation is not always found.[179] Several studies have found differences between races in average reaction times. These studies have generally found that reaction times among black, Asian and white children follow the same pattern as IQ scores. Black-white differences in reaction time, however, tend to be small (average effect size .18). Rushton & Jensen (2005) have argued that reaction time is independent of culture and that the existence of race differences in average reaction time is evidence that the cause of racial IQ gaps is partially genetic instead of entirely cultural. Responding to this argument in Intelligence and How to Get It, Nisbett has pointed to the Jensen & Whang (1993) study in which a group of Chinese Americans had longer reaction times than a group of European Americans, despite having higher IQs. Nisbett also mentions findings in Flynn (1991) and Deary (2001) suggesting that movement time (the measure of how long it takes a person to move a finger after making the decision to do so) correlates with IQ just as strongly as reaction time, and that average movement time is faster for blacks than for whites. Mackintosh (2011, p. 339) considers reaction time evidence unconvincing and points out that other cognitive tests that also correlate well with IQ show no disparity at all, for example the habituation/dishabituation test. And he points out that studies show that rhesus monkeys have shorter reaction times than American college students, suggesting that different reaction times may not tell us anything useful about intelligence. Brain size A number of studies have reported a moderate statistical correlation between differences in IQ and brain size between individuals in the same group. And some scholars have reported differences in average brain sizes between Africans, Europeans, and Asians. J. P. Rushton has argued that Africans on average have smaller brain cases and brains than Europeans, that Europeans have smaller brains than East Asians, and that this is evidence that the gap is biological in nature. Critics of Rushton have argued that Rushton's arguments rest on outdated data collected by unsound methods and should be considered invalid. Recent reviews by Nisbett et al. (2012a) and Mackintosh (2011) consider that current data does show an average difference in brain size and head-circumference between American blacks and whites, but question whether this has any relevance for the IQ gap. Nisbett et al. argue that crude brain size is unlikely to be a good measure of IQ; for example, brain size also differs between men and women, but without well-documented differences in IQ. At the same time newborn black children have the same average brain size as whites, suggesting that the difference in average size could be accounted for by differences in postnatal environment. Several factors that reduce brain size have been demonstrated to disproportionately affect black children. Earl Hunt states that brain size is found to have a correlation of about .35 with intelligence among whites and cites studies showing that genes may account for as much as 90% of individual variation in brain size. According to Hunt, race differences in average brain size could potentially be an important argument for a possible genetic contribution to racial IQ gaps. Nonetheless, Hunt notes that Rushton's head size data would account for a difference of .09 standard deviations between black and white average test scores, less than a tenth of the 1.0 standard deviation gap in average scores that is observed. Wicherts, Borsboom, & Dolan (2010) argue that black-white differences in brain size are insufficient to explain 91% to 95% of the black-white IQ gap. Archaeological data Archaeological evidence does not support claims by Rushton and others that blacks' cognitive ability was inferior to whites' during prehistoric times as a result of evolution. Policy relevance and ethics The 1996 report of the APA commented on the ethics of research on race and intelligence.[40] Gray & Thompson (2004) as well as Hunt & Carlson (2007) have also discussed different possible ethical guidelines.[40][193][non-primary source needed] Nature in 2009 featured two editorials on the ethics of research in race and intelligence by Steven Rose (against) and Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams (for).[194][195] According to critics, research on group differences in IQ will reproduce the negative effects of social ideologies (such as Nazism or social Darwinism) that were justified in part on claimed hereditary racial differences.[38][196] Steven Rose maintains that the history of eugenics makes this field of research difficult to reconcile with current ethical standards for science.[195] Linda Gottfredson argues that suggestion of higher ethical standards for research into group differences in intelligence is a double standard applied in order to undermine disliked results.[197] James R. Flynn has argued that had there been a ban on research on possibly poorly conceived ideas, much valuable research on intelligence testing (including his own discovery of the Flynn effect) would not have occurred.[198] Jensen and Rushton argued that the existence of biological group differences does not rule out, but raises questions about the worthiness of policies such as affirmative action or placing a premium on diversity. They also argued for the importance of teaching people not to overgeneralize or stereotype individuals based on average group differences, because of the significant overlap of people with varying intelligence between different races.[47] The environmentalist viewpoint argues for increased interventions in order to close the gaps.[199] Nisbett argues that schools can be greatly improved and that many interventions at every age level are possible.[200] Flynn, arguing for the importance of the black subculture, writes that "America will have to address all the aspects of black experience that are disadvantageous, beginning with the regeneration of inner city neighbourhoods and their schools. A resident police office and teacher in every apartment block would be a good start."[201] Researchers from both sides agree that interventions should be better researched.[179][22] Especially in developing nations, society has been urged to take on the prevention of cognitive impairment in children as of the highest priority. Possible preventable causes include malnutrition, infectious diseases such as meningitis, parasites, cerebral malaria, in utero drug and alcohol exposure, newborn asphyxia, low birth weight, head injuries, lead poisoning and endocrine disorders.[202] See also References Notes Bibliography

At the sacred convocation of Concordia Lutheran Seminary, Edmonton (25 May), and the Call Service of Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary, St. Catharines (27 May), the following placements were announced. More news and photos will follow later. Pastoral Candidate Placements Andrew Cottrill (CLTS): Zion Lutheran Church, Yorkton, Saskatchewan Kirk Radford (CLTS): Christ Lutheran Church, Sarnia, Ontario William Rose (CLS): Redeemer/Zion/Christ/St. Paul’s Lutheran Churches, Portage la Prairie/Plumas/Neepawa/McCreary, Manitoba Paul Schulz (CLTS): Trinity Lutheran Church, Mallard, Iowa; Zion Lutheran Church, Ayrshire, Iowa Vicarage Placements Matthew Fenn (CLTS): Our Saviour Lutheran Church and Parish, Dryden, Ontario Michael Mayer (CLS): Redeemer Lutheran Church, Didsbury, Alberta Christopher McLean (CLS): Redeemer Lutheran Church, Kitimat, BC Shiekh Lief Mauricio (CLS): Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, Winkler, Manitoba Kenneth Stadnick (CLS): Advent Lutheran Church, Evansburg, Alberta Diaconal Intern Placements Lenora Wallden, DPS (CUE): Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Kitchener, Ontario CLS = Concordia Lutheran Seminary, Edmonton, Alberta CLTS = Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary, St. Catharines, Ontario CUE = Concordia University Edmonton, Edmonton, Alberta

Ed Miliband’s pledge to lower the voting age to 16 has been mostly overlooked, thanks to the furore over energy prices. Aside from the principle of the issue, what impact might it have on election results? As I’ve covered previously (see here and here) there is mounting evidence that today’s young people are more right wing than their parents’ generation – certainly on issues of welfare, taxation, the deficit and individual responsibility. Being so doesn’t automatically make them Conservative voters, of course, but even that measure shows some increases. YouGov regularly find that 18-24-year-olds are the second most likely age group to vote Tory after the over 60s, and Wednesday’s poll produced the remarkable result among young people of both Labour and the Conservatives at level-pegging on 40 per cent. Yet another example of this cropped up on Newsnight earlier in the week in a package exploring how 16- and 17-year-old voters might use their newfound power if Labour were to be elected (you can watch it below in full). The programme asked a focus group of teenagers in the age bracket to choose where cuts should fall and where more spending should be allocated. Their first choice for the axe was the welfare bill, as a near-unanimous decision. They were even divided on whether to make savings from the pension bill. Sure, it’s an unscientific exercise but it was remarkably in keeping with the polling evidence which shows the young becoming remarkable hawkish when it comes to the welfare state. It’s a BBC programme, so needless to say this went entirely unremarked – it’s something we should watch closely, all the same. (video clip courtesy of liarpoliticians)

OTTAWA—Canadian auto parts companies and their unionized workers are criticizing an influential business group for urging the Liberal government to move forward quickly with a revamped Trans-Pacific Partnership. They say Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was right to hold off on signing a renewed TPP last month at the APEC summit in Vietnam and that the government’s critics of that decision are misguided. Flavio Volpe and jerry Dias, pictured here, say critics of the government’s decision on the TPP are misguided. ( Cole Burston / Toronto Star ) The presidents of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association and Unifor, Canada’s largest private sector union which represents autoworkers, say that’s because the TPP is bad for the small and medium-sized auto parts companies and their employees. Read more: Canada’s decision to decline TPP agreement shouldn’t have been a surprise: Trudeau Article Continued Below Thomas Walkom: Why Justin Trudeau will eventually join the new Trans-Pacific Partnership Five things to know about the Trans-Pacific Partnership Flavio Volpe and Jerry Dias both say the Liberals need to go slow to undo the potential damage done to their sector when the previous Conservative government agreed to concessions in the original TPP that would have given Japanese carmakers an unfair advantage in the Canadian market. Earlier this week, the Business Council of Canada sent Trudeau an open letter signed by 18 chief executives, telling him Canada must immediately join the reconstituted version of the TPP, which Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of in January. John Manley, the council president, said it was imperative for the Trudeau Liberals to join because Asia will move on without Canada at a time when this country needs to diversify its trade portfolio. But Volpe said the Liberal government has taken a “thoughtful approach” that benefits small and medium-sized companies and their employees instead of racing for the “trophies” that completed trade agreements represent. “It’s not un-Canadian to try to get better terms before you get into bed with someone for decades,” Volpe said in an interview Wednesday. Article Continued Below “The U.S. is no longer in it, so there’s no reason to accept terms when the context has changed.” Dias said Manley represents the interests of the chief executives and large companies, not their workers. “It’s about allowing corporations to do anything they want,” said Dias. “It’s about a philosophy of free enterprise, as opposed to putting Canadians to work.” Volpe and Dias said separately that the previous Conservative government of Stephen Harper is to blame for agreeing to the original TPP deal during the 2015 federal election campaign. They said it was bad for their sector and was reached without consulting their industry until late in the process. “The TPP was about politics. It wasn’t about economics. Harper was losing in the polls, he needed it as part of his election platform,” said Dias. Japan and the U.S. agreed in secret in April 2015 on what the content provisions of automobiles ought to be and then “foisted” the agreement on Canada and Mexico, said Volpe. The Rules of Origin content levels were set at “historic lows” at 35 per cent for parts and 45 per cent for cars, which would have allowed cars built in non-TPP countries such as China and Thailand to flood the North American market, he said. The current Liberal government listened to the concerns of the auto industry and blocked a plan by the 10 remaining TPP countries to sign a newly-configured version of the Pacific Rim trade pact last month at the APEC summit, said Volpe. Trudeau incurred the wrath of Australia and Japan, who had been pushing the new, non-U.S. version of the deal. Lawrence Herman, a Toronto trade expert with Herman and Associates, said finding a way to eventually join the new TPP is vital to Canada’s trade interests — but not at the expense of the auto sector. “We just need to be sure that any trans-Pacific deal recognizes that Canada, unlike the Asian parties, is part of an integrated North American auto market,” said Herman. Scott Sinclair, senior research fellow with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, said the new TPP agreement is the same as the old flawed one, and the Liberals are right to be wary. “With the U.S. out, no Canadian-assembled vehicle can realistically meet the pact’s rules of origin, which amounts to a one-way opening of the Canadian auto market,” he said. “It will be impossible for the Trudeau government to honestly square this zombie pact with a genuinely progressive trade agenda.” Read more about:

Photovore roared, the massive creature’s head thrown back in a cry of victory. The air around it grew dark as it drew in the ambient light. Blaze lay on the asphalt at the monster’s feet, drained and unconscious. Huma was still in the air, trying to get a shot at Photovore but barely dodging the creature’s blasts of scorching heat. Lian—she still didn’t think of herself as Hornet—watched from atop a nearby roof, trying desperately to come up with a new play…but instead, thinking about what Mantis would say when they got back to base. “Why couldn’t you keep control?”, or “You have to do better, Hornet,” or the worst, “Are you sure you still want to be here?” No. She couldn’t let herself get distracted. Mantis would lecture her soon enough. Right now? She and her team had a monster to take down. She put her hand to her ear and clicked on her communicator. “Blaze, if you can hear me, stay low. Huma, get ready to come in at a 45 degree angle along the street. I have a plan. We can do this, boys.” We can do this, she thought, and she dove off the building into battle. Masks is a tabletop roleplaying game in which you play young superheroes who are growing up in a city several generations into its superheroic age. Halcyon City has had more than its fair share of superheroes, superteams, supervillains, and everything in between. Over the course of three different generations of super-people, Halcyon City has seen it all. You play members of the fourth generation, young adults trying to figure out who they are and what kind of heroes they want to be. The rest of the world is telling them what to do, but they’ll find their own path amidst the noise. And kick some butt along the way. After all, what’s the point of being a hero if you can’t fight for the things you believe in? Masks is based on the award-winning Powered by the Apocalypse system developed by Vincent Baker and used in Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts,Urban Shadows, and more. It’s a rules-light system that fuels some of the best innovations in gaming in the last ten years, and Masks has been built from the ground up to incorporate everything I’ve learned about Powered by the Apocalypse games. When you take an action that would trigger a move, you roll two six-sided dice, add them together with one of your Labels (a stat that describes your hero), and look to the move to see what the results are. On a 10+, you get what you want, and maybe a little extra. On a 7-9, you get what you want, but at some kind of cost or with a complication. On a 6 or less—a miss—the GM says what happens next, and chances are things get complicated for our young heroes. Masks produces stories like those found in Young Justice, Teen Titans,Young Avengers, X-Men, and more, using the Powered by the Apocalypse rules to provide an easy but useful skeleton for awesome storytelling! Masks was successfully Kickstarted! Check it out! Halcyon City is a metropolis of gleaming spires and countless cultures, one of the greatest cities in the world. It also has far and away the greatest concentration of super-powered individuals in the entire world. Why that is…no one’s yet been able to say, but the why isn’t as important as the radioactive dinosaur stalking its way down Main Street or the devious mole people burrowing up underneath the Halcyon City Bank and Trust. The people of Halcyon City see more superheroics in a day than most people see in a lifetime. Halcyon City has adapted to the superheroes and their struggles in ways both obvious and subtle, from rapid-action construction crews designed to deal with destruction and mayhem to supervillain penitentiaries (like The Spike) near or even in city limits. It’s a place of wonders and dangers…and it’s awesome to live here. There’s no place like it on Earth. Supers have been around publicly for over half a century, starting with the first folks to put on the mask in the late ’30’s. Supers may have been around for much longer than that, but it’s only since they came forward and became a dominant force in the city that meta-historians, sociologists, and suprologists have tried to classify them by generation. The Gold Generation was the first, filled with costumed adventurers and men and women with powers greater than mere mortals. They were noble and honorable, and they fought for their country, for justice, for freedom and liberty. At the time, they could do no wrong. Nowadays, the historians of Halcyon City acknowledge the many flaws, blind spots, and failings of the Gold Generation, but no one can deny the good they did. Their statues stand across the city, and their names adorn buildings and streets. Though the vast majority of them are dead or retired at this point, the new generation of heroes can still feel their influence. The heroes that would come later were often more powerful, but the Gold Generation started it all. The Silver Generation came next: the first true supers. The Gold Generation was mighty, skilled, and maybe even superhuman, but the new generation could fly, tear holes in the fabric of reality, or summon up the primal forces of nature. The Silver Generation was the first generation to devote themselves to fighting supervillains, monsters, and dangerous phenomena instead of criminals or political wrongdoers. They carried on the “nobility” and “honor” of the Gold Generation–to them, matters were most often black and white. Their powers boosted them to the top of the superhero scene, and most of them are still in positions of power and authority in Halcyon City. They’re in charge of the largest superhero teams, the heads of giant megacorporations, and the most powerful politicos in the city. But they’re aging, passing into obsolecence, and they’re looking for new heroes to carry their torch. The Bronze Generation, the children and proteges of the Silver Generation, came up in a world already filled to the brim with superpowers and cosmic phenomena, with magic and madness. Their elders were still on top for most of their lives, and even those who tried to follow in the Silver Generation’s footsteps found themselves pushed out by their parents’ and mentors’ dominance. Many found new paths, becoming explorers of the strange and unusual or dark vigilantes in the streets that the Silver Generation had abandoned…or even becoming government agents. They were the first cynical supers, the first introspective generation, examining the legacy left them by their elders and finding it wanting and incomplete. While the Silver Generation is still dominant, the Bronze Generation lurks in the niches that the Silver Generation wouldn’t touch. They’ve shaped the world in their own way. And then…there’s you. An unnamed generation, not yet clear in temperament or destiny. No one knows yet how you’re going to reshape the world. That’s all down to you, your team, and your choices. When you create your character in Masks, you use a playbook designed to provide a template for your character. Each playbook is geared toward a different kind of young superhero, offering you options and choices alike to customize your character as a hero of Halcyon City. You can download them here. The basic set includes of playbooks includes: The Bull – You’re tough, gruff, and powerful on the outside, and caring on the inside—oh, and you were made by an evil organization that’d love to get you back: can you learn to rely on the team enough to save you from yourself? The Nova – You’re amazingly, egregiously, horrifyingly powerful, and keeping control is a struggle: can you come to terms with your power before it destroys you? Or someone you care about? The Outsider – You’re not from here, and you don’t quite understand this place, but you find it fascinating: can you find a way to belong? Or will you always be different? The Legacy – You’re carrying on a long tradition of heroism and nobility: how can you balance that legacy with your own identity? The Protege – You’re tied to a mentor who trained you: do you want to be them? Or someone else entirely? The Janus – You put on the mask, become someone different, escape your mundane life, but you know your responsibilities are always waiting for you: who are you really? The mask or the mundane? The Delinquent – You’re a rabble-rouser, a rules-breaker, and an incorrigible prankster, someone who pushes people away while secretly wishing they would stay close: can you stop being a little shit for long enough to let them know you actually care? The Doomed – Your powers are killing you; they come with some awful, nightmarish fate. But until that end comes, you’re going to work to change the world: how much are you willing to give up for your cause before your doom comes? The Transformed – You don’t look human anymore and the world won’t let you forget it: can you learn to accept yourself? Can you deal with their looks, stares, and fear without becoming the monster they see? The Beacon – You’re here because this is awesome, and you may not quite fit in, but screw it, you’re going to do this anyway: can you prove that you actually deserve to be here? Or are you just a wannabe? Characters in Masks each have five mechanical attributes called “Labels.” Labels represent how your character views their identity. Are you a Danger or a Savior? A Freak or Superior? Or are you just Mundane? Each Label ranges from -2 to +3; the higher the rating is, the more the character sees their self by that light. If you have Danger +3, you see yourself as a threatening, violent figure. If you have Mundane -2, you see yourself as anything but a normal person. The Labels include: Freak, which is all about being strange, unusual, unknown, different, unique, powerful, weird, and special. Danger, which is all about being strong, threatening, violent, destructive, badass, frightening, reckless, and mighty. Savior, which is all about being defensive, protective, overbearing, moralistic, guarding, patronizing, and classically heroic. Superior, which is all about being clever, faster, better, arrogant, dismissive, commanding, egotistical, and smart Mundane, which is all about being normal, empathetic, understanding, kind, boring, simple, uninteresting, and human. The Labels shift and change over the course of the game as your self-image changes, most often due to the influence of others. As these Labels shift, so does your position in the story: a hero who sees their self as a Danger is better at directly engaging villains and threats, but their low Mundane means they might struggle to connect with ordinary people after a fight. Influence is a mechanic used to keep track of whose words matter to you. When you have Influence over someone else, it means they care about what you say. When someone else has Influence over you, it means that you’re affected by their words. Much of Masks involves giving, taking, and losing Influence over others. After all, you can’t convince your teammate to stop being a Danger if you don’t have Influence over them. When you do have Influence over them, and you tell them how they endangered civilians, your words might lead their Labels to shift. They might be chagrined at your words, and shift their Danger up, and their Savior down—they see themselves as more of a Danger, because of what you said. Or, they might resist, argue with you, and wind up shifting their Savior up and their Danger down—they don’t care what you say because they define who they are, and they choose to be a Savior. Influence allows for a quick and easy way to understand whose words can cause your Labels to shift. You care about what they say, so your self-image is tied up in how they view you, what they say about you, and what you accept about their perspective on the world. Of course, you are just a young superhero, trying to find your way. And that means in Masks, all the adults have influence over you by default. But you can resist what they say to free yourselves of their words. You just have to stand up to them, and tell them that you make your own path…easy, right? You can keep up with the latest Masks news over at the G+ community, or on our social media. Also check out the long example of play Brendan wrote, as well as our backer appreciation page and the Halcyon City Champions!

Hello there, We’re back earlier than expected, with some unfortunate news that we feel we need share with you. On the weekend, there was a serious medical emergency with one of our team’s close family members. The situation is severe enough that they won’t be able to complete their work in time for Need to Know’s alpha release. As a result, we most likely cannot make the September 26th release date without severely compromising the alpha’s quality and the mental health of one of our team. Their work is almost finished, but given the gravity of the situation, they will need a little extra time to complete it. Our thoughts are with them and their family at this tough time. This news will no doubt come as a great disappointment to many of you, and no one more than ourselves. We’ve pushed ourselves hard to get the alpha ready in time, and development was on schedule before this emergency struck. Delaying this release again is the absolute last thing we want to do. However, a short interruption is probably unavoidable, and we felt you needed to know as soon as possible. As the pending assets can be dropped right into the game, the wait won’t be longer than a week or two. The other parts of development will continue at full speed, and the additional time may give us the opportunity to add an extra feature to the alpha that we thought we wouldn’t have time to include. It’s only fair that you get more to play, given your incredible patience and support. When we’ve solidified a new date, we’ll post it on social media a couple of days in advance. Our next Kickstarter update will announce the release of the alpha, and you’ll be able to download it right away. We can’t tell you how dispiriting this delay is for us all, but at the same time we also want to express how grateful we are for your excitement and encouragement over the last few months. When hit by setbacks like this, your support makes it that much easier to remain focused and motivated. Until next time, Tristram and Quincy [P.S. A reminder for backers at Clearance Level 8 and higher: The backer survey will still close on the 30th of September, so make sure you have your responses in soon! Please let us know if you have any questions or issues with it.]

Supreme Court Justices to abolish Texas Death Penalty - they want an evening off (ACPA-Houston, TX) Texas is reeling at news that the death penalty is facing the possibility of being declared unconstitutional. Supreme Court Justices, sick of missing Friday night poker and evenings at the symphony, plan to use an upcoming appeal as an excuse to abolish executions. "I'll miss the overtime," said Justice Scalia, "but not the bleeding heart lawyers with their last gasp appeals." Shock and Dismay As details of the plan leaked out, groans of shock and dismay were recorded across the lone star state as Texans started to come to terms with the news that their beloved death penalty might be taken away. "This all started with the abolition of execution for the retarded," said Dwight Johnson of Walker County, "that dang Yankee Supreme Court should stay out of our business." Death row guards concerned for their jobs have decided to take action. Union spokesman Jim Austen stated that, "we are going to start a grassroots nationwide campaign to encourage other states to have more executions." Arguing that the death penalty is a time honored tradition, he was quick to point out that, "the death penalty is just like freedom of religion - use it or lose it." Over in Houston, the Mayor is particularly concerned that mass layoffs could follow in the prosecutor's office and he has weighed in his support for the guards union. "You love the yellow rose of Texas, now it's time to love the Death Rows of Texas," he said in an impassioned plea for support from other cities nationwide. Meanwhile traffic came to a standstill in downtown Huntsville, home of the Texas death chamber, when several members of the strapdown team staged an impromptu strap-in. Trade War looms On the financial front, markets reacted to the news by dumping shares of chemical companies specializing in the manufacture of sodium thiopental. Lean times are ahead unless these companies can break into the burgeoning but restricted Chinese death penalty market. The US is expected to raise the issue in upcoming WTO talks. Also read about the Atlanta woman who loves PBS pledge marathons Trying to improve: After Trayvon Martin, Alabama to introduce "Hoodies For Hispanics" program. or click here for all our satire news stories

Honeymoons don't last forever. But that doesn't mean the love affair has to end — and the love affair Canadians are having with Justin Trudeau's Liberals appears to be enduring in the polls. The Liberals continue to hold the new support they captured after their majority victory in last fall's federal election, when they pulled votes away from both the Conservatives and New Democrats. What do Canadians think of the leaders? Explore the latest numbers for the 5 major federal leaders in our new CBC Leader Meter. Justin Trudeau's own popularity also remains high, with approval ratings well above those of both of his main rivals, interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose and outgoing NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, as well as the ratings he posted before last year's vote. The CBC's new interactive tool, the Leader Meter, lets you track those numbers. Over the last three months of polling, the Liberals have averaged 46.7 per cent support. That's an increase of 7.2 points over their performance in the Oct. 19 election and nearly even (up 0.1 points) from their average support during the previous quarter of federal polling calculated three months ago. The Conservatives have averaged 29.1 per cent, also unchanged from where they were in the previous quarter but down 2.8 points from the last election. The New Democrats, after taking 19.7 per cent of the vote last fall, have averaged just 13.6 per cent support. That's down 6.1 points from the last election and one point from the previous quarter. The Greens have averaged 5.1 per cent support since March, while the Bloc Québécois has averaged 4.2 per cent. The Liberals' support has held relatively steady across the board — notable considering that their polling numbers between December 2015 and February 2016 had all the hallmarks of the normal political honeymoon of a new government. But the party has nevertheless seen further gains in some parts of the country, particularly in British Columbia. The party is up 10.3 points from the last election, leading in the province with 45.4 per cent support, and has gained 2.6 points over the last quarter alone. The Liberals' most significant increase since the last election remains in Quebec, where the party has gained 12.2 points since the last election and sits at 47.9 per cent. That level of support is largely unchanged from where they were in the previous quarter. In Ontario and the Prairies, the Liberals have also posted gains since both the election and the last quarter. They lead comfortably in Ontario with 50.7 per cent support and trail the Conservatives narrowly in Saskatchewan and Manitoba with 39.6 per cent. But the Liberals may have reached a ceiling in Atlantic Canada. With 59.9 per cent support, the party is only up slightly over the 2015 election result that saw them sweep the region, and they are down 3.5 points from last quarter. Trudeau, too, may have hit a ceiling. His average approval rating over the last three months (56.3 per cent) is down over three points from last quarter. Perhaps the first hints that the love affair may one day sour. Though the Conservatives are still polling below their standing last fall, they have nevertheless managed to hold on to the support they posted in the initial aftermath of losing power. Since the election, the party's biggest losses have occurred in Alberta (down 4.5 points to 55.1 per cent) and in Ontario and Quebec, where the party is down 3.4 points. That puts them at 31.7 per cent in Ontario and 13.3 per cent in Quebec. Despite the praise Stephen Harper had in his speech to the party's convention last week for the Conservatives' electoral gains in Quebec, that is one province where the party saw its support decrease for a second consecutive quarter. But the Conservatives did see an increase over the last quarter in the province where they held that convention — the Tories were up about two points in British Columbia, to 27.2 per cent, though that is still down almost three points from the last election. This most recent quarter was a difficult one for the New Democrats. Their provincial cousins lost elections in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the latter ending almost 17 years in office, and their federal leader lost a key leadership vote and will be replaced next year. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this coincided with a drop in Tom Mulcair's approval ratings. His average approval rating was down more than eight points from the previous quarter, to 34.3 per cent. The party continues to poll well below its results from the last election, down more than six points on the Prairies, eight points in Quebec and almost 10 points in British Columbia. That is where the NDP saw its biggest drop in support over the last three months as well, falling 3.9 points to 16.3 per cent. B.C. will be holding a provincial election in less than a year that the provincial NDP is hoping to win. The Bloc Québécois averaged 16.8 per cent support in Quebec over the last three months. That is a drop of 2.6 points from the last election — the party's worst — but up 2.2 points from last quarter. The Greens saw no significant shift in support over the last three months. The party's best results came in British Columbia, where the Greens averaged 10.1 per cent. That was down marginally over the last three months, but up about two points since the last election. Everywhere else, the Greens, who traditionally poll above their electoral results, averaged less than 7 per cent support. Leader Meter: CBC Politics' new interactive tool The next federal election may be years away, but what Canadians think of how their political leaders are doing today matters — and the CBC's Leader Meter tracks just that. The Leader Meter is an interactive feature tracking the latest public opinion polls related to leaders' approval and disapproval ratings. The Leader Meter lets you choose the data you want to look at, how you want to break it down, and how it compares to past party leaders and Canadian prime ministers. You can check out the Leader Meter here. You can also read a full explanation on how to get the most out of this interactive tool here. Follow CBCPolitics on Twitter @cbcpolitics This article reviews trends in national public opinion surveys, and includes all polls conducted and published by different pollsters between March 1 and June 1, 2016. Methodology, sample size and margin of error if one can be stated vary from survey to survey and have not been individually verified.

The world’s first monkeys with genes modified through a DNA engineering method known as Crispr/Cas9 were born in a lab. The scientific breakthrough by Chinese researchers could become a cornerstone for research and prevention of human genetic disorders. Researchers at Nanjing Medical University and Yunnan Key Laboratory of Primate Biomedical Research in Kunming in China have created two genetically modified macaques with targeted mutations using the CRISPR/Cas9 system. “Our study shows that the CRISPR/Cas9 system enables simultaneous disruption of two target genes in one step without producing off-target mutations,” study author Jiahao Sha told the Science Daily. “Considering that many human diseases are caused by genetic abnormalities, targeted genetic modification in monkeys is invaluable for the generation of human disease models.” The researchers introduced single-cell macaque embryos with modified Ribonucleic acids (RNAs) to generate the genome-editing process. RNA is a ubiquitous family of large biological molecules that perform multiple vital roles in the coding, decoding, regulation, and expression of genes. Using the Crispr method, Chinese scientists were targeting three genes in the experiment – one that regulates metabolism, another that regulates immune cell development and a third that regulates stem cells and sex determination. The birth of the genetically modified monkeys was not an easy process. Scientists had to target the genes in 180 single-cell monkey embryos. Eighty three of those 180 embryos were injected into female macaques, yielded only 10 pregnancies. Only one pregnancy so far led to the birth of a pair with simultaneous mutations in two genes. According to coauthor of the study Wezhi Ji, researchers discovered multiple changes in their target genes at different stages of embryonic development. But the newborn macaques are still too young for researchers to determine if their experiment had an effect on physiology or behavior, though “data from this species should be very useful for curing human disease and improving human health,” says Ji. Monkeys are a natural choice to study human disorders because of their close similarities to Homo Sapiens, although past scientific endeavors of precision gene modification in primates have failed. Inserting, deleting, and modifying DNA in human cells and other animal cells has been performed in labs within the confines of petri dishes. The method of gene modifications was also applied to various rodents and zebrafish, however with the birth of two monkeys the study published in Cell magazine, shows that Crispr can produce practical primates with genomes customized at specific targeted genes. Some researchers have already welcomed the breakthrough, saying that this method can eventually help recreate in monkeys such diseases as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, which can’t be studied in other animals like mice. "If we can identify genes for neurological disorders in a clinical setting and transpose those into a monkey it would be of massive benefit. I don't know that it'll lead to a rise in the use of monkeys, but it will lead to more focused studies," said Tipu Aziz, who used primates for his work on Parkinson's disease at Oxford University, the Guardian reports. "People have been looking for primate models for a whole list of diseases, but in the past it's been either completely unfeasible, or incredibly expensive," Nelson Freimer, director of the centre for neurobehavioral genetics at the University of California, told The Guardian. “It's going to be really critical to define the problems for which this is used, just as you always do with animal research. You want to use all the alternatives before you propose animal research. This will be reserved for terrible diseases for which it offers hope that cannot be gotten any other way.”

Sheffield United Football Club announces today (Tuesday) that HRH Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has become joint owner of the Club. Click here to download an Arabic version of this announcement. Prince Abdullah has secured a 50% interest in Blades Leisure Ltd, the holding company for Sheffield United FC, in return for which he will invest substantial new capital into the club with the aim of working with current owner Kevin McCabe and his family to achieve the Blades' return to the Premier League as quickly as possible. The Prince becomes Co-Chairman with Kevin McCabe of Blades Leisure and Sheffield United. Prince Abdullah, aged 47, is a grandson of the founder of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, King Abdulaziz. He is a passionate football supporter and is former President of Al Hilal FC, the largest and most successful club in Saudi Arabia. He is also Chairman of Saudi Arabia's Football Privatisation Committee. Prince Abdullah is a prominent Saudi businessman and industrialist. He is the founder and Chairman of the publicly-listed Saudi Paper Manufacturing Group, the largest paper tissue manufacturer in the Middle East. He is active in other fields in the services and investments sectors in Saudi Arabia, and internationally. He travels extensively and works with other prominent businessmen from around the world to promote trade, goodwill and understanding through sport between Saudi Arabia and other countries. Prince Abdullah said: "I am delighted to invest in such a sensibly-organised, family and community club with a great history and heritage. Joining Sheffield United FC at a time close to its 125th year in existence is significant to me and, like Kevin, I am determined to see it achieve its goals and look forward to working with the whole Blades community. However, money will be spent judiciously, and in any case we must comply with the Salary Cost Management Protocol." Kevin McCabe said: "We are thrilled to be building this new partnership for Sheffield United with Prince Abdullah, who shares our vision for the Blades to join the top tier of English football. The McCabe family remains wholly committed and over the past 10 years has invested more than £90 million in rebuilding our fine and proud Club, which now has a top-class stadium, academy and junior development centre." The boards will also see new directors in Abdulraham Bin Abdullah (the Prince's son), James Phipps (the Prince's principal advisor) and Selahattin Baki (a highly regarded Turkish businessman and General Manager of Premier Paper Converting Company, which manufactures consumer tissue paper products in Izmit, Turkey). London and Dubai-based specialist consulting firm Forticap acted as the sole arranger for the transaction.

Amanda Clarke and Victoria Grayson will go one final round in the Revenge series finale. The ABC soap is ending after a sure-to-be-epic showdown in the season 4 finale, and Us Weekly has a sneak peek at the women facing off in the episode. "For you, death is my only true revenge," Amanda (Emily VanCamp) hisses at Victoria Grayson (Madeline Stowe) while aiming a gun at her sworn enemy. The elder Hamptonite was presumed dead after framing Amanda for her murder, but is, in fact, very much alive — and unafraid of death. PHOTOS: TV shows gone too soon "I died long before you were born. This is just a formality," Victoria says. "Are you ready now?" Amanda ominously responds, "More than you know. Goodbye, Victoria." Dun dun dun! Things aren't looking good for the two rivals, and executive producer Sunil Nayar told Us Weekly ahead of the finale that nothing will be the same for either woman if they make it out alive. "Is this a woman that is able to shake off the shackle of what her mission has been? Should she survive, what is that survival going to look like? Because I think there’s no way to get out of this untainted," the showrunner dished of Amanda/Emily's potential fate. PHOTOS: The most shocking TV deaths ever The finale will focus on "the idea that each character, in some form or another, gets their moment of redemption and destruction," he continued. "What is the collateral of what’s happened to all those people? I think we’ve answered those questions very elegantly and in a lot of times very surprisingly in the finale." PHOTOS: Emily VanCamp and Josh Bowman's real-life love story Of course, the Grayson/Clarke rivalry will take center stage. "The show is Victoria and Emily," Nayar said. And as for Victoria, "[the Victoria vs. Emily] dynamic is the lifeblood of the show, and I think the work [Stowe] did this year was exceptional. You’ll see where Victoria’s story ends up next week but it is the right ending." The Revenge series finale airs Sunday, May 10 at 10 p.m. ET on ABC. Sign up now for the Us Weekly newsletter to get breaking celebrity news, hot pics and more delivered straight to your inbox! Want stories like these delivered straight to your phone? Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now!

A four-year old Texas boy found wandering across the border in Mexico this winter finally returned to the United States. Authorities believe his mother traveled from El Paso to Juarez to purposely abandon the child. Over the weekend, the El Paso Police Department announced that the youngster found in the Mexican state of Chihuahua returned to the United States on Friday night. The four-year-old remained in the custody of social services in Juarez for more than four months. The police department tweeted they placed the little boy into the care of Child Protective Services (CPS). Since then, though, it appears authorities reunited the child with his father in El Paso. CAP – 4 year old boy found in Juarez was returned to the United States & CPS Friday evening. dp — EL PASO POLICE DEPT (@EPPOLICE) July 1, 2017 Breitbart Texas reported that Mexican police found the boy wandering alone on the streets of Juarez on February 22. They suspected the child, purportedly named “Luis,” was American because of his command of the English language. Months later the El Paso Police Department identified the four-year-old as a U.S. citizen. In fact, detectives in the south Texas border city only first learned about the boy in late May when an El Paso police supervisor in the Crimes Against Persons unit attended an Amber Alert seminar in Mexico City and heard about the child’s situation. Subsequently, on June 3, El Paso police issued a media alert about the unidentified boy. His mother, Ruby Esmeralda Gonzalez, 25 viewed photographs of her son on El Paso TV news broadcasts and then contacted police to report her child as a kidnapping victim. An ensuing police investigation revealed Gonzalez crossed over the U.S.-Mexico border and into the city of Juarez on February 22 where, allegedly, she left her child in a dilapidated and deserted building. Gonzalez then returned to El Paso on the same day. According to KVIA, a Juarez cab driver actually found the boy who was alone, scared, and hungry. The cabbie contacted local police who then took the child into custody. When investigators examined “Luis,” they noticed bruises on his head, legs, and buttocks. Current El Paso jail records show that police arrested Gonzales on June 5 on one count of child abandonment with imminent danger and booked her into the El Paso County Detention Facility on a $10,000 bond. On June 13, law enforcement officials charged her with filing a false report to a peace officer, federal special investigator, or law enforcement employee. This carries a $10,000 bond. On top of that, they charged Gonzalez with injury to a child with the intent of bodily injury which has a $25,000 bond. She remains incarcerated in the county jail. Reportedly, before releasing “Luis,” Chihuahua police said the unidentified adult male had to take a DNA test in Juarez to prove he was the biological father. Investigators with the Mexican Attorney General’s office, officials from the United States Consulate in Juarez, and CPS authorities worked to bring the boy to home to his father, according to local Juarez newspaper El Diario de Juarez. Follow Merrill Hope, a member of the original Breitbart Texas team, on Twitter.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Lebanese army found a surface-to-air missile (SAM) in a weapons cache left by Nusra Front militants after it took over some of the jihadists’ positions in northeast Lebanon, a Lebanese security source said on Friday. The cache also included U.S.-made so-called TOW anti-tank missiles, the source said. Photographs of the cache sent by the security source showed large numbers of shells and rockets. There have been sporadic reports throughout Syria’s six-year-old civil war of rebel groups gaining access to SAMs. Last year the Syrian government said rebels had used one to shoot down a jet, but insurgents said they had downed it with anti-aircraft guns. The Nusra Front was the official branch of al Qaeda in Syria until it changed its name a year ago and broke formal allegiance to the global jihadist network. It held a pocket of territory straddling the border between Syria and Lebanon until a Hezbollah offensive last month that forced it to accept evacuation to a rebel-held part of Syria. Lebanon’s army has taken over the positions that Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shi’ite group allied to the Syrian government, took from the Nusra fighters last month. The Lebanese army is also preparing for an offensive against the last militant presence in the mountainous border area, an Islamic State pocket near to the one previously held by Nusra.

Researchers at the University of Maryland, College Park have printed transparent transistors on transparent paper. The finished device is flexible, up to 84% transparent, and in theory this could be the first step towards green, paper-based electronics. As we’ve covered before, printing computer circuits isn’t overly difficult — you just need to find the right conductive and semiconductive inks (which can be tricky), and then print them out on a suitable substrate until you have a transistor. Because these ink-based printed circuits are very thin, though, the smoothness of the substrate is very important. When you’re dealing with layers of ink that are a few nanometers thick, any blemish on the substrate is enough to disrupt the flow of electrons and break the circuit. In the case of regular old paper, bumps and blemishes are usually measured in micrometers — far too irregular to print circuitry on. Not to be deterred, the researchers at the University of Maryland used nanopaper — paper created from wood pulp that’s been specially treated with enzymes and mechanically beaten. Nanopaper has a much more regular structure than normal paper, and is stronger (and transparent) as a result. More importantly, though, nanopaper is smooth to within just a few nanometers. “It’s as flat as plastic,” says Liangbing Hu, one of the researchers who worked on the project. With the nanopaper in hand, the researchers then created some transistors by printing three inks: First a layer of carbon nanotubes, then a dielectric ink, then a semiconducting ink, and then another layer of nanotubes. The nanotubes not only act as electrodes but also act as a structural backbone. The final transistors are up to 84% transparent, and the device continues to work while bent. Moving forward, it’s easy to imagine flexible, printed devices that are responsibly sourced using renewable sources. The fact that these printed circuits are highly transparent could also be useful, either for cosmetic reasons in wearable computing, or for building displays. Before such applications can be considered, though, the researchers will have to find a way of producing these transparent transistors using roll-to-roll printing, or another commercial, mass-producible process. Now read: The first flexible, fiber-optic solar cell that can be woven into clothes Research paper: DOI: 10.1021/nn304407r – “Highly Transparent and Flexible Nanopaper Transistor”

Feel the rhythm, feel the ride, c’mon man its bobsled time! Cool runnings! Jamaica’s two-man bobsled team of Winston Watts and Marvin Dixon qualified for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. It’s the first time a Jamaican bobsled team has qualified for the Winter Olympics since 2002. #BREAKING: Jamaica’s 2 man Bobsled qualified for Winter Olympics in Sochi . CONGRATULATIONS!!!! #JamaicaBobsled pic.twitter.com/Ns1nnhqn9b — Team Jamaica (@JamaicaOlympics) January 18, 2014 An entire generation is familiar with the Jamaican bobsled team after Cool Runnings. The Disney movie told the somewhat fictionalized story of how the Caribbean country defied the odds to qualify in the four-man bobsled for the 1988 Olympics in Calgary. Qualifying for the 2014 Olympics was the easy task for the two-man team of Dixon and Watts. Heading into St. Moritz, they only needed to avoid disaster in order to earn their spot in Russia. The hard part will be getting to the games. Watts told Chadband the financial hardship the team is under at the moment: In truth, we still don’t really know at the moment if we’d even have enough funds or sponsorship to fly to Sochi itself for the Games itself. It all depends. Our families need to be taken care of first. If there’s no funding, who knows? But, I’m one of life’s optimists. I put my heart on the line for this. Any British companies out there interested in sponsorin’ us? Hopefully, the Jamaican Olympic Association will step in and support us now we’ve qualified. Now that the Jamaicans have officially qualified, financial benefactors may come out of the woodwork after hearing of Watts’ story. Perhaps the Jamaican Olympic Association will pony up some dough, too.

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White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon told a group of House conservatives they had no choice but to back the GOP's ObamaCare repeal bill days before the bill was pulled, according to a new report. Bannon confronted members of the House Freedom Caucus earlier this week during the White House's push for the American Health Care Act, Axios's Mike Allen reported Saturday in his newsletter. "Guys, look. This is not a discussion. This is not a debate. You have no choice but to vote for this bill,” Bannon reportedly said. ADVERTISEMENT A Freedom Caucus member reportedly replied: “You know, the last time someone ordered me to something, I was 18 years old. And it was my daddy. And I didn't listen to him, either." The conservative group met with President Trump Donald John TrumpREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails Trump urges North Korea to denuclearize ahead of summit Venezuela's Maduro says he fears 'bad' people around Trump MORE at the White House on Thursday, but the president reportedly did not want to discuss policy specifics of the healthcare legislation. Freedom Caucus members were calling for additional changes to the GOP plan to further dismantle ObamaCare. Trump singled out the caucus in a Friday morning tweet, arguing funding for Planned Parenthood would remain intact should members vote against the GOP plan. “The irony is that the Freedom Caucus, which is very pro-life and against Planned Parenthood, allows P.P. to continue if they stop this plan!” the president wrote.

This is the full 4-1-13 episode of the Labor Express Radio program. In Pilsen, a working class, Mexican immigrant on Chicago’s Southside, Metro Bank has been foreclosing on several apartment buildings and has been attempting to evict the building’s tenants. But little did Metro Bank know that at least two of their tenants were seasoned activists and members of the IWW (The Industrial Workers of the World). And like good Wobblies, these tenants didn’t simple mourn the banks attempts to evict them - they organized! They communicated with friends and neighbors at several buildings in the community that were taken over by Metro Bank and are fighting back. On Friday about two dozen tenants and their supporters held a rally outside Metro Bank in east Pilsen. We will hear what they had to say on today’s program. And we have a very special in studio guest this morning. Oscar Chacon- Executive Director of the National Alliance of Latin American & Caribbean Communities (NALACC), is here to talk about developments in the debates over immigration reform in the U.S. and about an exciting event being held next Saturday here in Chicago called Latino Nation. Labor Express Radio is Chicago's only English language labor news and current affairs radio program. News for working people, by working people. Labor Express Radio airs every Monday morning at 10:00 AM on Chicago's Sound Alliance, WLUW, 88.7 FM. For more information, see our website at: www.laborexpress.org or our Facebook page... facebook.laborexpress.org and our homepage on Archive.org at: http://www.archive.org/details/LaborExpressRadio

Police across Kansas feel they are targets of “built-in” bias and say they are wrongly accused of racial profiling. Those sentiments underlie findings of a new study by a Wichita State University professor for the Kansas Department of Transportation. Specifically, 39 of 61 officers interviewed for the research said they had been accused of racial profiling at least once during a traffic stop. Yet none said they were the subject of a formal complaint following the traffic stop. One Hispanic officer “said he has been accused of racial profiling at least fifty times,” says a 59-page analysis compiled by Michael Birzer, a professor of criminal justice and director of WSU’s School of Community Affairs. The officers were from 15 agencies, including the Wichita Police Department. Sign Up and Save Get six months of free digital access to The Wichita Eagle Last year, Birzer completed a study for the city of Wichita finding that Wichita police ticketed black motorists at disproportionately higher rates than white motorists. While African-Americans made up only 11 percent of the city’s population, they accounted for 22 percent of the people given traffic citations from November 2012 through April 2013. That report said the results don’t prove that racial profiling exists because a number of factors may influence who gets ticketed by police. For example, if police are deployed more heavily in minority neighborhoods, it might explain why more minorities are being stopped. It can “present the perception of racial profiling even though it may not be occurring,” the report said. The latest Birzer study, commissioned by the state, was designed to get officers’ perspectives. Birzer interviewed or spoke with the officers multiple times and met with them in focus groups. Besides the Wichita department, the officers were from the Andover, Arkansas City, Derby, Dodge City, Eastborough, Kansas City, Lenexa, Newton, Pittsburg, Topeka and Wichita State University police departments and the Reno, Shawnee and Sumner County sheriff’s departments. Many of the interviews were taking place as the tense situation in Ferguson, Mo., where a black teen was fatally shot by a white officer, was unfolding, Birzer said. “We have an opportunity to look at both sides of this issue,” Birzer said. One sound approach to police-community relations, he said, seems to be “good, old-fashioned interaction, communication, just the little things that don’t cost a lot of money.” “If every officer treated their beat like Andy Taylor” – the sheriff in the small town of Mayberry on “The Andy Griffith Show” on TV in the 1960s – “that can go a long, long ways,” Birzer said. On being accused The officers said that when they were accused of stopping motorists because of their race, usually it was an African-American accusing them. Asked how they responded to the accusation, officers said they tried to explain the specific reason – speeding or a defective brake light – but they thought motorists accepted the explanation only part of the time. One white officer told a black driver that he couldn’t see his race until he walked up to his car. One officer shared this: “Some officers don’t care and won’t take a few extra minutes to explain to the citizen why they are being stopped and that’s a problem.” The officers, two-thirds of whom are white, are not identified by name or agency. Another theme: Officers suspected that minority drivers accusing them of racial profiling were trying to intimidate the officers. They suspected it was a way to evade a ticket or to try to distract the officer because the motorist had a suspended license or something to hide. “Only a very few officers indicated that racial minority citizens allege racial profiling because they genuinely believe they were stopped because of their race,” the report said. Officers said minorities had a bias against them that has been taught. One black officer said: “African Americans learn not to trust the police from a young age. … Older generations of African Americans had bad experiences with the police and so that leaves a bad impression of the police which is passed down generationally in families.” A white officer said that when he said “Hi” to children in a car during a traffic stop, the adults “will tell the kids don’t talk to the police.” Media blamed Officers blame the news media for part of the negative image, saying that media skew their reporting against police when it comes to the issue of racial profiling, and that media “over-report” on cases like the shooting in Ferguson, Mo. “So I really think the media are like weather chasers,” one officer said. “They are going to report anything, and objectivity doesn’t really matter.” What people don’t understand, officers said, is that they are targeting crime, not minorities. Police call it “proactive policing.” The problem is, the same neighborhoods where they go after gangs and drug trafficking often are home to many low-income minorities. The officers said they learn from experience to look for certain clothing, gestures and behavior for crime indicators – not race. “So when you’re driving along and these indicators start popping up you’re like wow,” one officer said. Police also defend their use of “pretext” stops, where they are stopping someone for a minor traffic violation because they suspect the person of something more serious. For example, an officer might stop a driver for not signaling soon enough after the car leaves a drug house. The report notes that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld pretext stops. “My biggest case came from using a pretext stop for a defective headlight,” an officer said. A black officer from eastern Kansas said he once wondered about a fellow officer who always seemed to be pulling over black men. “But getting to know him over the years,” the officer said, “I realized that he is not like that at all, he just has this photographic memory for criminals regardless if they are white, purple, black or red and when he passes you he’s on it.” Training criticized Police say their racial-profiling training is “boring,” “bland” and “mind numbing” and should be more interactive. Some officers proposed bringing in minorities during the training so the citizens would understand the officers’ view. It goes both ways. Birzer noted in an interview about his latest study that when he talked with minorities for his Wichita racial profiling study, they said they wanted to see officer training “so police could have a better understanding of them and their culture.” Part of the problem is that minorities don’t have enough positive contact with police, a white officer said in the latest study. Another sentiment is that officers have to be smart and realistic about their public relations effort. “I mean, holding a feed or a barbeque in the middle of the hood with a bunch of cops is not going to do it,” one officer said. The media also need to be invited to officer training so they can be better educated about police work, officers said. A white female officer said about the media: “Maybe if they gave as much attention to the positive things that we do that would be a start. It takes one bad incident to wipe out all good things that go on.”

I was in Cleveland the day LeBron announced he would be taking his talents to South Beach. I’ve performed music in Cleveland more times than I can count. One of the things I enjoy about touring is getting to meet sports fans of all different teams, and walks of life. In that one day I gained more respect for Cleveland as a fan base than I have for any other in my life. The sense of absolute misery that overtook everyone – from gas station attendants to elite music promoters and executives – was overwhelming. Even dogs walked around aimlessly, looking like they had been recently kicked. Cleveland is a city that lives vicariously through their professional sports franchises. Win or lose (and there’s been a lot more “lose” both recently and historically) the fans there take it personally. I love that about them. Now, the Cleveland Browns are at a crossroads. Coming off a disappointing 4-12 season in 2011, the organization is faced with a monumental decision: What to do at quarterback, the league’s most vital position. My friends, my loyal readers, my fellow students of NFL sickness; it is here you will learn that whatever road Cleveland takes from their present situation into the wild blue yonder will come through Central Texas. Browns QB Colt McCoy needs little introduction around these parts. While at the University of Texas, he broke nearly every Longhorn single-season and career QB record and took home 13 of 15 major QB awards his senior season as a Heisman and national championship finalist. McCoy is tough, gritty, smart, elusive, and accurate which makes up for his “so-so” arm strength. After being drafted in the third round and getting to start in spot duty in 2010, Colt came into the 2011 season as the Browns’ starting QB in a West Coast system that many close to the team thought he was beginning to get a good grasp of. The Browns’ season went on to be hampered by brutal injuries along the offensive line, a constant merry-go-round freak show at the running back position, and a complete lack of playmaking ability at WR. McCoy was lost for the season to a concussion suffered in Pittsburgh during week 13 via an illegal James Harrison hit. When the dust settled on the Browns’ 2011 season, only three numbers really mattered, though: 4, 12, and 0. Four wins, 12 Losses, and zero career wins for Colt McCoy against AFC North division opponents. There’s a kid from up the road you might have heard of named Robert Griffin III. The Heisman-winning Baylor QB represents most everything a team looking for revitalization on offense could ask for. He has a big arm, he’s smart, he’s a great leader, and he exhibits excellent downfield vision and elite running ability. The best part: He does not rely on his feet to bail him out. Unlike most elite running QBs, he will always look to make the play with his arm first, sometimes taking brutal hits to remain in the pocket until his receiver comes open. The Browns have two first-round picks in this year’s NFL draft. Pick No. 4 and pick No. 22. I will be attending the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis next week, and was invited for inclusion in Mike Mayock’s NFL Combine media conference call, where I had a chance to address the Cleveland QB issue. His thoughts were much different from those of NFL writing legend and Senior Editor for the Browns Vic Carucci who we spoke with in Mobile, Ala., earlier this month at the Senior Bowl. Lets start at the top: The Colts will take Andrew Luck (QB, Stanford) with pick one. Saint Louis picks second. They have too much money tied up in Sam Bradford to even consider a QB. Their reasonable options are as follows: Matt Kalil (OT, USC), Justin Blackmon (WR, Oklahoma State), Morris Claiborne (CB, LSU) or in the best case scenario, trade out of the pick to someone who wants Robert Griffin and accumulate more picks through the very valuable late first, second, and third rounds. The two teams thought to be interested in possibly trading up are the Redskins and the Browns. At pick three, the Vikings would love to have Kalil fall to them, as LT is their single biggest need. If he is not there and Griffin is still on the board, they will try to trade down to a team wanting Griffin as the Vikes reached to draft QB Christian Ponder in last year’s draft. If they cannot trade down and Kalil is gone, I expect them to take Morris Claiborne at this point. Now we come to the Browns at pick four (assuming they did not trade up.) If Griffin is there … should they take him? I say no. “We haven’t seen an athlete like RG3 in many drafts,” Mike Mayock, lead draft analyst for the NFL Network told me. “The chance that the Browns may be able to get him, that’s exciting. It will be a ride, that’s for sure. There are a few flaws to his game, mainly lack of anticipation and waiting on plays to develop leading to too many big hits, but the bottom line is the kid is a playmaker.” To me, the issue is not about Griffin’s playmaking ability or even his ability to be an elite NFL QB. I see the issue as being the system. Browns GM Mike Holgren is a Bill Walsh disciple. He has been building championship variations of the West Coast offense for almost 30 years now. In coming to Cleveland, he put his managerial trust in Head Coach Pat Shurmur who runs what he likes to call a “pure” form of the West Coast offense. Vic Carrucci affirmed our suggestion that there is generally a three-year learning curve for QBs developing into this kind of system. He went on to say that many decision-makers within the organization were beginning to see vast, marked improvement in McCoy’s progression in the system that was cut off too early in 2011 (albeit by only three games). He said that if he had to prognosticate at this early juncture, that he believes McCoy will come in as the team’s starting QB next season. Carucci told us that the Browns scouting department has done such a bang-up job on the defensive side of the ball (drafting four defensive starters in the last two drafts) that he believed 2012 would be the year that Shurmur would finally get to address some of the offensive issues that have been left largely unanswered. So I asked Mike Mayock, "Why would an offensive-minded coach (knowing how hard it is to go through a long QB development process) want to risk the possibility of making his hot seat even hotter by throwing in a wild-card uber-athlete at QB with no surrounding weapons?" “That’s an interesting question – but we saw it all last year. Offenses are showing more and more … Cam Newton, for example. Look at Cam. He comes to Carolina, they build around him. All these guys, Jake Locker [Titans], Christian Ponder [Vikings], if there is one thing we learned last year it is that rookie QBs can come in and contribute," Maycock replied. "But you said he has no anticipation. I agree. Do you not think that anticipation is important in a timing-based precision West Coast offense in which you must 'throw receivers open' as opposed to 'throwing to open receivers'?" I questioned. “Yea, and its another one of these deals,” Mayock said. “You have an exceptional player here and a chance you may be able to get him. Childress, Shurmur, you know; they would have to change how they do some things, sure.” Mike Holmgren doesn’t just “change things”. His staff will not either. Thinking in such broad terms can be messy. Panthers Head Coach Ron Rivera had the luxury of “letting Cam be Cam” on offense because he was a first-year defensive head coach with his hands full trying to fix the heap of garbage Carolina runs on D week in and week out. I see the idea of RG3 to the Browns as one that could create a lot of excitement for a fan base in dire need of some sort of positive spark, but I just don’t like the fit. Holmgren has stated publicly he will be taking a QB in 2012. This is not an indictment on the position or its current standing, just an affirmation of his regime’s “bullpen” mantra in either drafting or signing a new QB each season for depth and seasoning. I see so many more reasonable options later in the draft. An accurate, smart passer like Kirk Cousins (Michigan State) in the third round would be ideal to groom under McCoy in case his development does not positively continue given his new weapons and surrounding cast. At that point, you have an accurate passer and student of the game coming into the system without the handicaps that McCoy endured his first season as a starter due to lack of offensive personnel. The position needs to be upgraded, but that does not mean that McCoy could not bring about that upgrade with a better offensive line, an entire off-season/training camp, and at least one offensive playmaker. If Griffin falls to pick four, I believe the Browns could trade down to six and let the Redskins take Griffin. At pick six, hopefully the Browns could land a Justin Blackmon, a Trent Richardson (RB Alabama), or worst case, a Riley Reiff (OT Iowa). Then at pick 22, there will be an embarrassment of riches at offensive skill options, especially WR. Through the second and third rounds is where the greatest value for interior offensive line is found. I do believe Robert Griffin III will be an outstanding NFL QB. I simply do not believe he will be an outstanding Cleveland Brown QB given the current state of the organization. [Alex Dunlap is the host of RosterWatch on 104.9FM ESPN Radio Austin, founder of Rosterwatch.com, and a featured expert contributor to the FantasyPros.com network. He is also an NFL draft analyst for PlayTheDraft.com.]

If sports columns were posted on bulletin boards in town squares instead of the internet, folks would be gathered around Ailene Voisin's Bee column with jaws slung low and "what the Frahms" ringing out regularly. It's a gem. Holy cow, it's a gem. First, Voisin's sources -- which on first glance look like either the Maloofs or close confidants of the Maloofs -- say that the family will accept a matched bid from Sacramento. In fact, On Thursday, sources close to the Maloofs said that if the Sacramento group submits a matching offer that satisfies the league's other owners, they will embrace an outcome that keeps the Kings in Sacramento. And "We're giving Sacramento every opportunity to keep the team," one source said Thursday, "but they keep blowing every deadline. We haven't seen anything in writing." That's good news, I guess? But here's the really fun news. The Maloofs have met with NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and have for months looked into buying a hockey franchise, with Las Vegas among the possible destinations. Their interests also have expanded and included opportunities in Major League Baseball. I can envision David Stern running over to Gary Bettman during the annual Sports Commissioners Summit (totally a real thing don't try to convince me otherwise) and saying, "Tag, you're it." (And lord, can you imagine if the Maloofs sold the Kings to the Sacramento group and then successfully bought the Coyotes and moved them to Vegas, blocking Seattle's bid for an NHL team!) MALOOFED, indeed. This whole saga has entered the Twilight Zone. Thanks for sending us there, Ailene.

Image caption People took the streets again on Friday in Cairo, the traditional day of protest On chilly, rain-soaked streets, activists turned out for a peaceful march to al-Ittihadiya, the presidential palace in Cairo's well-off Heliopolis district. "Step down, step down, Muslim Brotherhood!" and "Freedom is for us and for you!" were among the chants. Some carried placards showing a red cross through the face of President Mohammed Morsi. Meanwhile, in Tahrir Square, the scene of renewed clashes between protesters and police over the past week, numbers swelled to several thousand after Friday prayers. Rallies against Mr Morsi also took place in cities along the Suez Canal where he imposed emergency measures to try to halt recent violence. Demonstrators carried pictures of young men killed in the fighting. More than 60 people died in the latest wave of unrest that added to the sense of a deep crisis in Egypt. The numbers at the latest demonstrations were lower than expected and greatly diminished from those seen two years ago, at the height of the Egyptian uprising. However, they were another expression of the anger and disappointment that many Egyptians feel over the performance of their new Islamist leader who narrowly won last June's presidential election. 'New authoritarianism' Mr Morsi's critics accuse him of betraying the values of the 2011 revolt and imposing a new brand of authoritarianism that concentrates power in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood, the religious organisation from which he stems. Image caption Protesters say they want to purge the country's judiciary and interior ministry The main opposition coalition, the National Salvation Front (NSF), demands a national unity government and amendments to the new Islamist-tinged constitution. Revolutionary groups also call for reforms. "We're not for or against Morsi. He just hasn't fulfilled his electoral promises," says Mohammed Adel, a leader of the 6 April Youth Movement which helped organise the latest protests. "We want the constitution to be changed, we want the judiciary and interior ministry to be cleansed and we want violence by the state to stop." The president's supporters argue that his detractors refuse to accept the results of a free and fair election and are trying to seize power through the street. Mr Morsi has not ruled out a committee to re-examine the rushed new constitution but says a new government will be decided after parliamentary elections in a few months. "After the elections we will have a parliament chosen by the people. It is the duty of parliament to make a new government," he told journalists on Wednesday. Al-Azhar agreement This week brought a stern warning from the head of the military that continuing political strife could cause the collapse of the state. Egypt's army 490,000 active soldiers Military governed between February 2011 until June 2012 Gen Abdul Fattah al-Sisi (pictured above) is head of the armed forces and minister of defence Military's budget not made public or scrutinised by parliament. It is overseen by National Defence Committee made up of military chiefs and cabinet members US military aid to Egypt $1.3bn According to some estimates army controls 40% of economy Profile: Abdul Fattah al-Sisi Suez: the city fighting a curfew Q&A: Egypt's riots and political crisis Black Bloc anarchists emerge Afterwards, Egypt's Grand Imam summoned rival political factions, youth groups and church officials to the headquarters of al-Azhar, the 1,000-year-old institution that is the top seat of Sunni Islam. They agreed to sign up to a charter condemning violence and committed to dialogue as a way to end the crisis. It prompted the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Mohammed ElBaradei, a leader of the NSF, to speak of his "optimism" while the head of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, Saad el-Katatni, declared it "a historic day". The agreement appeared to help take away the impetus for further mass protests on what activists had called "The Friday of Salvation". A lot of Egyptians are also weary of demonstrations or are worried about their personal safety. Egypt on edge The economy was already teetering before the latest turmoil. Tourism and foreign investment have fallen dramatically. The central bank has been forced to drain currency reserves to prop up the Egyptian pound. "The country is going down. It's worse now than under the old president," said one man observing protesters at the entrance to Tahrir Square. Another bystander chimed in: "[The former president, Hosni] Mubarak was lousy and he was a thief but at least we had security and we were living". Parts of central Cairo have become no-go areas for many ordinary people with reports of a spike in sexual assaults and increased crime and lawlessness. The Nile-side luxury hotel, the Semiramis InterContinental, has been closed after masked men looted it early on Tuesday, terrifying guests. "This is a disaster," said small businessman, Gamal. "I have loans that I can't repay. We need tourism to come back, we need the economy to come back and we need a strong leader who can make the right decisions."

I’ve always managed to dodge the bullet and avoid the addictive pull of Pokémon. Leave it to a button-mashing brawler with plastic figurine accessories to finally get me hooked. At first glance, Pokémon Rumble U isn’t much to look at. With its simplistic controls and repetitive gameplay, you might feel inclined to dismiss it as yet another cash-in of the popular Nintendo franchise. But despite its faults, there’s actually much more to Rumble U than meets the eye, making this a satisfying and fun little title for fans of the series and newcomers alike. The gameplay is nothing to rave about. It’s incredibly basic. Using either the Gamepad or Wii Remote, you move your character around tiny arenas and attack using one of two buttons as countless hordes of Pokémon charge you head on. If you and your team of four Pokémon (human co-op or CPU controlled) survive the onslaught, then you’re left to battle the stage’s giant-sized boss Pokémon. Upon victory, you’re ranked according to the points you’ve collected and are presented with all the Pokémon that you’ve managed to catch for the round. That’s pretty much all there is to it. Rinse and repeat. There’s very little room or need to strategize a plan of attack. It really boils down to how powerful your Pokémon are and whether or not you’re lucky enough to unlock more of them.[singlepic id=15820 w=320 h=240 float=right] You may have already guessed it, but most of the appeal does not derive from the monotonous gameplay. While I do admittedly enjoy a mindless brawler from time to time, the real fun in this game comes from the satisfaction of completing challenges to unlock new levels, hoarding coins to upgrade your character (if you purchase the optional figurines) and of course collecting Pokémon. I’m not gonna lie, it really is all about the Pokémon, all 649 of them. There’s something about these odd little creatures that just makes you need to collect them. I’m sorry, but it happens. I don’t know if it’s because they’re each so uniquely designed with creative names like Leafeon and Heatran or if its because each Pokémon has different skills and power levels, but every time you find a new one, there is a slight yet noticeable release of endorphins into the bloodstream, leaving you temporarily warm and gooey inside. I imagine this sense of satisfaction is even more magnified for diehard fans of the series as they constantly dream of catching their favorite elusive Pokémon to add to their collection. [singlepic id=15819 w=320 h=240 float=left]And if that wasn’t bad enough, Pokémon Rumble U introdces a new, real world element to further prey on us hapless addicts. The Near Field Communication (NFC) figurines are probably the most unique and appealing aspect of this title. Pokémon Rumble U is the first game to ever use the Wii U’s NFC scanner that comes already built in every gamepad. I honestly didn’t know it was there before this game came along. I always thought it was just some funny symbol on the bottom left of the controller for aesthetic design. When you place one of the separately sold figurines ($3.99 a pop at Gamestop) onto the gamepad, the coinciding character pops up on the screen. It’s similar to the technology used in Skylanders and, more recently, Disney Infinity. The base of the figure acts as a sort of memory card for the character, storing stats and upgrades. The developers say you don’t need to buy these NFC figures to play the game, and while that is essentially true, without at least one of these little guys you’ll be cheating yourself out of the most rewarding experience in the game. Unlike the two previous Pokémon Rumble titles, in Rumble U the only characters that you’re able to level up are these separately purchased NFC figures. And since all upgrades are purchased in the game using the coins you collect from matches, there really is no other point to collecting them except to occasionally pay for continues. Trust me, I tried playing the game without an NFC and it just wasn’t any fun. There was no incentive to play. It felt utterly boring and unmotivated That’s when I decided to drag myself off the couch and face the lines at Gamestop. They had the Pokéball dispenser prominently displayed at the front desk next to the gift cards. There were two dozen red and white capsules spilling from the boxes, each containing a random and unknown Pokémon just waiting to be revealed. You have no idea what Pokémon you’re getting until you buy it and open it. Nintendo is getting a lot of flak for making the pokéballs randomized, but I know it’s all part of the plan and just another addictive element to the game. I was surprised to find myself actually getting excited about this thing. Would I get a rare character with special abilities? What would it look like? The checkout guy gave me a knowing look and told me these little balls were selling like hotcakes. Feeling uncomfortable from the whole situation, I left as quickly as I could and then, just like one of those guys playing scratch offs in the gas station parking lot, I opened my pokéball and tore through the inside bag.[singlepic id=15822 w=320 h=240 float=right] My Pokémon is a black fox with red hair called Zoroark. He’s not the coolest dude with the best powers on the block, but he came to me and he’s mine. And from that point on I was officially hooked. I finally had something to spend all those coins on. I was going to make Zoroark the strongest Pokémon in the world. I’d start by leveling up his HP and attack traits. I figure he’s specialized in Dark moves so maybe I’ll…Oh dear God what have I become? They got me. I’m hooked on Pokémon and I didn’t even see it coming. Strange how much a good motivator can improve a game’s overall appeal. Suddenly the arena battles weren’t so pointless; I was working towards something. Collecting Pokémon started to matter because the more powerful ones could help me beat challenges to get more points to upgrade Zoroark. My Zoroark. My precious… Beyond the storyline mode that can be beat in roughly six hours of playtime, there are tons of little motivators built in to keep you coming back for more and, just like the worst of addictions, the more you use it, the more this game tightens its sinister grip around you. I must warn you, if you do have an addictive personality, turn back now and save yourself from countless hours of monotonous button mashing. You’ll find yourself hunting down elusive Pokémon to add to your insane collection or trying over and over to complete challenges with ridiculous requirements. Every level has a list of challenges with specifics that’ll keep you searching for the right Pokémon or executing the correct number of moves before you can unlock bonus capsules that sometimes contain Pokémon for your collection. Some challenges ask for you to use only Pokémon with a power level below 200 or to only use Pokémon with names beginning with “O.” There are even challenges that use the Wii U’s internal clock that require you to beat the game on a Monday or in the evening before it can be unlocked. Such requirements may seem excessive and tedious but if you really care about completing the collection, you’ll do just about anything, raising the replay value to fully beating the game somewhere in the week to month range (meaning 300 to 600 hours, and that’s a safe estimate) It’s a good time, but seriously, if you are an addictive personality, consider yourself warned. [singlepic id=15821 w=320 h=240 float=left]Pokémon Rumble U is a game of firsts. It’s the first Pokémon title for the Wii U, which also makes it the first one with HD graphics. It’s the first to use Wii U’s NFC, and it’s the first game to allow in game screen captures that you can post directly into the Miiverse social network for instant likes and comments. It’s a pretty cool feature – with the touch of a button you can take a picture of your game and share it with the Pokémon online community. There’s a lot of new stuff being unveiled in this title and it feels more like an introduction of things to come rather than a stand-alone game, which probably explains it’s low pricing of $17.99. The graphics are flashy and fun to look at, but sometimes there is so much going on in the screen that it’s easy to lose track of your character. I can’t tell you how many times I had no idea what I was doing so I just kept mashing the attack buttons. The couch play co-op is an awesome addition, but I was very disappointed that they missed the opportunity to make a VS. battle mode. I mean, what could be more fun than two friends battling their custom built Pokémon in a one-on-one battle? I think they missed the boat on that one. It’s also saddening that they didn’t provide any online capabilities for the game. So I guess what I’m getting at is that this isn’t a super quality game, but it’s loads of fun and it’s good at what it does. Pokémon Rumble U is designed to keep you locked in and coming back for more. It’s a harmless diversion with a built in sense of accomplishment that I may not fully endorse (I’m not about to hunt down all 18 of the NFC figurines), but I certainly can appreciate the fun here. I’ll definitely continue upgrading my Zoroark. My girlfriend even got a Pikachu that she’s leveling up alongside me in co-op. Who knows, maybe someday we’ll even get around to catching all 649 Pokémon. It could happen. Stefan started gaming the day his dad brought home a shiny, brand new commodore 64. He's been hooked ever since. Whether he's leveling up his ninja in Final Fantasy Tactics, cruising the streets of San Andreas or working on his Terran build order, videogames are never far from his mind. He is currently on the lookout for an appropriate 12 step program to address his electronic addiction.

What’s the definition of serendipity? Being randomly selected as winner from thousands of entries to a draw for tickets to a crunch World Cup rugby match where your son, Paul O’Connell, is team captain. Unsuspecting Irish Examiner marketing executive Catriona Buckley was momentarily floored by the answer she received after phoning the lucky winner of the newspaper competition yesterday and asking if she was free to travel. “Yes. But is it OK if I am Paul O’Connell’s mother?” said the equally astounded Shelagh O’Connell. Shelagh actually had the Irish Examiner in her hand and was looking at the hilarious front-page picture of Paul on a ride at Alton Towers amusement park with his teammates when she took the call. “I buy the Examiner all of the time because I think the sports coverage is excellent,” Shelagh said. She had already scanned the newspaper for details of the competition winner. “I didn’t see anything about it, so I assumed it was over and I hadn’t won. When I saw the Cork number flashing up on the phone, I thought it was a call from Cope where Michael’s [her husband] sister is based. I was quite surprised and shocked to hear I had won the competition.” But had her famous son not already sorted tickets for his mum and dad for Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium where Ireland take on France in their final pivotal pool game on October 11? “He doesn’t get tickets until the day of the game,” said Shelagh “But to be honest, match tickets are not the problem. It’s the flights and actually getting there. For the last game, when Ireland played Canada in Cardiff, we had to fly into London, followed by a four-hour drive to Cardiff. I wasn’t the best after sitting in the car for four hours. “And I’m really looking forward to flying straight to Cardiff and having somewhere to stay, which in Cardiff is a huge problem.” Problem solved then, thanks to her win, which guarantees her two nights in the 4-star Morgans Hotel in Swansea, just 65km from the stadium, with match transfers laid on. Her win also includes return flights from Dublin to Cardiff, airport transfers, the assistance of a Killester Travel Rep, a Rugby World Cup souvenir, and two match tickets. So who’s the lucky travelling companion? “I suppose I have to bring Michael, it would look kind of bad otherwise,” Shelagh laughed, adding that Paul’s brothers, Justin and Marcus, “will go mad when they hear”. To win, Sheila had to answer eight World Cup rugby-related questions. And while her son Paul is used to victory, is this her first big win? “I’ve never won anything of significance before so this is a great surprise. But hopefully we’ll have a few good wins in the World Cup too and we’ll have the [Webb Ellis] Cup at the end of October.”

During Jan/Feb AIG would call up and just ask for complete unwind prices from the credit desk in the relevant jurisdiction. These were not single deal unwinds as are typically more price transparent - these were whole portfolio unwinds. The size of these unwinds were enormous, the quotes I have heard were " we have never done as big or as profitable trades - ever ". This is largely due to AIG-FP unwinds. Allowing for significant reserve release and trade PnL, I think for the big correlation players this could have easily been US$1-2bn per bank in this period. far these profits were a) one-time in nature due to wholesale unwinds of AIG portfolios, b) entirely at the expense of AIG, and thus taxpayers, c) executed with Tim Geithner's (and thus the administration's) full knowledge and intent, d) were basically a transfer of money from taxpayers to banks (in yet another form) using AIG as an intermediary. This protocol would allow non-market close outs The purpose of the Protocol is to permit parties to agree upfront that in the event of a counterparty default, they will use Close-Out Amount valuation methodology to value trades. Close-Out Amount valuation, which was introduced in the 2002 ISDA Master Agreement, differs from the Market Quotation approach in that it allows participants more flexibility in valuation where market quotations may be difficult to obtain . Industry participants observed the significant benefits of the Close-Out Amount approach following the default of Lehman Brothers. In launching the Close-Out Amount Protocol, ISDA is facilitating amendment of existing 1992 ISDA Master Agreements by replacing Market Quotation and, if elected, Loss with the Close-Out Amount approach . "This is yet another example of ISDA helping the industry to coalesce around more efficient and effective practices, while maintaining flexibility," said Robert Pickel, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, ISDA. "The Protocol permits parties to value trades in the way that is most appropriate, which greatly enhances smooth functioning of the market in testing circumstances." Zero Hedge is rarely speechless, but after receiving this email from a correlation desk trader, we simply had to hold a moment of silence for the phenomenal scam that continues unabated in the financial markets, and now has the full oversight and blessing of the U.S. government, which in turns keeps on duping U.S. taxpayers into believing everything is good.I present the insider perspective of trader Lou (who wishes to remain anonymous) in its entirety:"AIG-FP accumulated thousands of trades over the years, all essentially consisted of selling default protection. This was done via a number of structures with really only one criteria - rated at least AA- (if it fit these criteria all OK - as far as I could tell credit assessment was completely outsourced to the rating agencies).Main products they took on were always levered credit risk, credit-linked notes (collateral and CDS both had to be at least AA-, no joint probability stuff) and AAA or super senior portfolio swaps. Portfolio swaps were either corporate synthetic CDO or asset backed, effectively sub-prime wraps (as per news stories regarding GS and DB).Credit linked notes are done through single-name CDS desks and a cash desk (for the note collateral) and the portfolio swaps are done through the correlation desk. These trades were done is almost every jurisdiction - wherever AIG had an office they had IB salespeople covering them.Correlation desks just back their risk out via the single names desks - the correlation desk manages the delta/gamma according to their correlation model. So correlation desks carry model risk but very little market risk.I was mostly involved in the corporate synthetic CDO side.As these trades are unwound, the correlation desk needs to unwind the single name risk through the single name desks - effectively the AIG-FP unwinds caused massive single name protection buying. This caused single name credit to massively underperform equities - run a chart from say last September to current of say S&P 500 and Itraxx - credit has underperformed massively.I can only guess/extrapolate what sort of PnL this put into the major global banks (both correlation and single names desks) during this period.For those to whom this is merely a lot of mumbo-jumbo, let me explain in layman's terms:AIG, knowing it would need to ask for much more capital from the Treasury imminently, decided to throw in the towel, and gifted major bank counter-parties with trades which were egregiously profitable to the banks, and even more egregiously money losing to the U.S. taxpayers, who had to dump more and more cash into AIG, without having the U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner disclose the real extent of this, for lack of a better word, fraudulent scam.In simple terms think of it as an auto dealer, which knows that U.S. taxpayers will provide for an infinite amount of money to fund its ongoing sales of horrendous vehicles (think Pontiac Azteks): the company decides to sell all the cars currently in contract, to lessors atbelow the amortized market value, thereby generating huge profits for these lessors, as these turn around and sell the cars at a major profit, funded exclusively by U.S. taxpayers (readers should feel free to provide more gripping allegories).What this all means is that the statements by major banks, i.e. JPM, Citi, and BofA, regarding abnormal profitability in January and February were true, howeverFor banks to proclaim their profitability in January and February is about as close to criminal hypocrisy as is possible. And again, the taxpayers fund this "one time profit", which causes a market rally, thus allowing the banks to promptly turn around and start selling more expensive equity (soon coming to a prospectus near you), also funded by taxpayers' money flows into the market. If the administration is truly aware of all these events (and if Zero Hedge knows about it, it is safe to say Tim Geithner also got the memo), then the potential fallout would be staggering once this information makes the light of day.And the conspiracy thickens.Thanks to an intrepid reader who pointed this out, a month ago ISDA published an amended close out protocol , i.e. CDS trade crosses that were not alligned with market bid/offers.Of course ISDA made it seem that it was doing a favor to industry participants, very likely dictating under the gun. And, lo and behold, on the list of adhering parties, AIG takes front and center stage (together with several other parties that probably deserve the microscope treatment). So - in simple terms, ISDA, which is the only effective supervisor of the Over The Counter CDS market, is giving its blessing for trades to occur (cross) below where there is a realistic market bid, or higher than the offer. In traditional equity markets this is a highly illegal practice. ISDA is allowing retrospective arbitrary trades to have occurred at whatever price any two parties agree on, so long as the very vague necessary and sufficient condition of "market quotations may be difficult to obtain" is met. As anyone who follows CDS trading knows, this can be extrapolated to virtually any specific single-name, index or structured product easily. In essence ISDA gave its blessing for below the radar fund transfers of questionable legality. The curious timing of this decision and the alleged abuse of CDS transaction marks by and among AIG and the big banks, is striking to say the least. This wholesale manipulation of markets, investors and taxpayers has gone on long enough.

Stacey Tillman, a 47-year-old woman from Sandusky, Ohio, says she has donated over $300 to Susan G. Komen for the Cure each year for the past nine years. The issue is close to her heart, she says, because her aunt had breast cancer. This year, however, following the news that Komen has pulled breast exam funds from Planned Parenthood for political reasons, Tillman is sending her money straight to the family planning provider instead. "I donated $250 this morning, and then I'll see what I can do in a couple months if I can get more," she told HuffPost in a phone interview. "I've had family members in financial difficulty that have used Planned Parenthood for pap smears and breast cancer screenings. They're getting my money now because they help the needy and the people who fell through the cracks." After partnering with Planned Parenthood for the past five years to provide cancer screenings to low-income patients, Komen announced on Tuesday that it would sever ties with the family planning provider because it is under investigation in Congress. However, the groups that prompted that investigation are anti-abortion advocacy organizations that have long criticized Planned Parenthood over the fact that some of its clinics offer abortions. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) both criticized and revoked their support for Komen on Wednesday. "I was perplexed and troubled to see the decision by Susan G. Komen for the Cure to cut off funding for life-saving breast cancer screenings through Planned Parenthood because of a political witch hunt by House Republicans. I truly hope that they will reconsider this decision and put the needs of women first," Boxer said in a statement. "I have been a big booster of the Susan G. Komen organization, but not anymore," Speier said on the House floor. One of Komen's own affiliates withdrew its support as well. The Connecticut affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure said in a statement on Wednesday that it "shares" people's frustration over the decision and that it will continue funding Planned Parenthood of New England. "The decision regarding the funding of Planned Parenthood was made by Susan G. Komen for the Cure National Headquarters," the group posted on its Facebook wall. "Susan G. Komen for the Cure Connecticut enjoys a great partnership with Planned Parenthood, and is currently funding Planned Parenthood of Southern New England. We understand, and share, in the frustration around this situation. We hope that any investigation prohibiting Planned Parenthood from receiving Komen grants is promptly resolved." Komen has faced a massive social media backlash since announcing the decision, with angry people flocking to its message boards and Facebook wall to announce that they will no longer donate to the breast cancer charity. Many commenters on Facebook have complained that Komen is scrubbing some of the more negative comments from its wall, but a spokesperson for Komen said the organization is only deleting the profane ones. "We have not and do not scrub negative comments from Facebook unless they include profanity," said Leslie Aun, vice president of communications for Komen. "There have been some serious misrepresentations of our position, which is unfortunate. The level of interest reflects the fact that people care deeply about breast cancer and women's health issues." The main sentiment among the thousands of people posting online seems to be that regardless of one's position on the issue of abortion, it is wrong to politicize women's health. According to a new Polipulse analysis of online conversations about the issue, only 26 percent of people believe Komen made the right decision. Nearly a quarter of the people who expressed criticism of Komen's decision online said they were going to pull their donations from Komen. In contrast, Planned Parenthood has seen a huge influx of financial donations in the 24 hours since Komen broke ties. While the organization has not officially released the new donation numbers yet, a source close to the issue said they've raised "hundreds of thousands" of dollars in individual donations during that period. That, combined with a donation of $250,000 from Texas oil executive Lee Fikes and his wife Amy for a "Breast Health Emergency Fund," could put the family planning provider on track to match or surpass the roughly $680,000 it received from Komen in 2011. Planned Parenthood said it also saw a spike in people making appointments for breast examinations Wednesday. "The silver lining is that more people than ever are aware that Planned Parenthood provides breast exams, and we're seeing more people calling us today to make an appointment," Tait Sye, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood, told HuffPost. "Politics should not get in the way of women's health, and people respond powerfully when they see politics interfering with women's health." UPDATE: 3:40 p.m. -- Planned Parenthood announced on Wednesday that it has received $400,000 from about 6,000 donors since Komen announced it was cutting funding to the organization on Tuesday afternoon.

Image caption Andrew RT Davies (L) and Alun Cairns (R) will not take part in the debate A row has erupted between senior Welsh Tories after it emerged neither Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies nor Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns were taking part in Tuesday's BBC Wales leaders' debate. The Tories were represented by education spokesman Darren Millar AM. Mr Cairns said it was intended that Mr Davies would be the representative. But a spokesman for Mr Davies accused Mr Cairns of being "unwilling" to take part himself. He said Mr Davies had been happy to take part, but on the basis that one candidate took part in the three Welsh TV debates. It had been expected that Mr Davies would take part in the earlier Ask The Leader BBC Wales debate, but prior to broadcast, the Conservative Party decided to put up Mr Cairns. It is understood Mr Davies - who had taken part in the ITV Wales debate earlier in May - is on holiday. The other parties put up their campaign leaders - Labour's Carwyn Jones, Plaid Cymru's Leanne Wood, Lib Dem Mark Williams and UKIP's Neil Hamilton. Image caption Darren Millar is education spokesman for the Conservatives in the Welsh Assembly Mr Cairns told BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine show that it was "always intended" that Mr Davies would be the debate's Conservative representative. The Welsh Secretary said he himself was "never" going to be part of the programme, and claimed Mr Davies could not be there for personal reasons. He said he was confident Mr Millar would do an "excellent job". Mr Cairns appeared for the Conservatives in last week's series of Ask the Leader programmes on BBC Wales. Mr Cairns' comments prompted a critical statement from a spokesman for Andrew RT Davies. He said: "With the Secretary of State unwilling to take part in the General Election debates, Andrew was more than happy to fill in - but that agreement was reached on the basis that it would be best for the party to put forward one candidate for all of the programmes. "Given that Alun was willing to take part in the Ask the Leader programmes, Andrew felt that it was no longer necessary to return from celebrating his wedding anniversary to do the debate. "It's a bit of a surprise that Alun isn't taking part tonight, but our Policy Director Darren will do a brilliant job." Image caption Mr Millar is one of five senior politicians taking part in the BBC Wales leaders debate A spokesman for BBC Wales said: "BBC Wales invited the main political parties in Wales to nominate a leader to take part in its Leaders' Debate. "The party chooses its representative and in this instance the Conservative Party has nominated Darren Millar AM." First Minister Carwyn Jones said the decision showed "incredible disrespect to the people of Wales that the Secretary of State, the leader of the Welsh Conservatives, can't be bothered to turn up at a leaders' debate". In a statement Plaid Cymru accused the Conservatives of treating "democracy with contempt" and claimed "avoiding scrutiny" seemed to be a "key strategy" for the Tories. UKIP said it was "very strange for a party leader to be replaced in two leader debates". The Liberal Democrats claimed Andrew RT Davies "will be desperate to be avoid being next in line for another car crash TV appearance from the Conservatives". In 2015, then Welsh Secretary Stephen Crabb represented the Tories in the debates, while Owen Smith, then shadow Welsh secretary, took part for Labour. Mr Jones says he is now involved - instead of Shadow Welsh Secretary Christina Rees - to reflect a change of rules that officially appointed him Welsh Labour leader earlier this year. Analysis by Daniel Davies, BBC Wales political correspondent The Conservative campaign was supposed to be about the leadership of Theresa May. And yet the Welsh Conservatives will be represented by three politicians in three leaders' TV broadcasts. This is not what they planned. I'm told Andrew RT Davies was willing to do all three, but clearly that has broken down. There are contrasting accounts of why that happened. People have differing opinions over who should be participating. Behind the scenes, there is tension within the party. One source calls it a "shambles". Carwyn Jones - Labour Despite not being a candidate at the 2017 general election, Carwyn Jones is undoubtedly the face of Labour's campaign in Wales - with little or no mention of Jeremy Corbyn. That reflects the view that he is more popular in Wales than Labour's UK leader with the party running a distinct Welsh campaign on this side of Offa's Dyke. Mr Jones grew up in Bridgend, the constituency he has represented in the assembly since 1999, and has been a member of the cabinet since 2000. During that time he has held the post of environment minister, education minister and the Welsh Government's main legal advisor. Following Rhodri Morgan's decision to stand down as first minister in 2009, Carwyn Jones beat off the challenge from Edwina Hart and Huw Lewis to become the third leader of the Welsh Government. When the 2010 general election saw Labour lose power in Westminster, it left Mr Jones as the most senior elected Labour politician in the UK. He has used his role to try to push for further powers for the assembly and for more clarity on how the different governments of the UK should work together. However, his views have often put him on a collision course with Welsh Labour MPs who were said to have given him a "roasting" over his views on one occasion. Mr Jones did not back any of the candidates for the Labour leadership in 2015. And while he has been lukewarm at best in his support for Jeremy Corbyn, he has also criticised Labour MPs who have been openly critical of their leader. Watch Carwyn Jones on Ask the Leader Darren Millar - Conservative Brought up in Towyn on the north Wales coast, Mr Millar had a background in accountancy before being elected to the Welsh Assembly in 2007 to represent Clwyd West. A committed Christian, he is currently spokesman for the Welsh Conservatives on education, and has poked fun at his being dubbed "Millar the Cereal Killer" because of his opposition to free school breakfasts - acknowledging its echoes of when former prime minister Margaret Thatcher was called "the milk snatcher". During the last assembly term, from 2011 to 2016, Mr Millar chaired the assembly's public accounts committee. While at the helm of the influential body the AM led an inquiry into the Welsh Government's sale of public land to raise funds for regeneration. The inquiry resulted in a highly critical report claiming taxpayers had been short-changed by millions. He was previously his party's health spokesman for Wales, where he was vocal on problems such as hospital waiting lists and shortages in GP recruitment and, particularly as a north Wales AM, failings at the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board. Before being elected to the assembly, Mr Millar was a Conwy county borough councillor, and at the age of 24 was the youngest serving mayor in Wales, for his home patch of Towyn and Kinmel Bay. Like Mr Jones and Ms Wood, he is not a candidate in the general election. Image copyright ITV Leanne Wood - Plaid Cymru Leanne Wood was the outsider who broke the Plaid Cymru mould when she won the party's leadership election in 2012 to succeed Ieuan Wyn Jones. She is Plaid's first female leader, the first to be a non-fluent Welsh speaker and the first from outside the party's heartlands in north and west Wales. Born and raised in the Rhondda valleys - where she still lives - her political awakening came during the miners' strikes of the 1980s. But, unlike many of her peers, Ms Wood turned to Plaid Cymru rather than Labour. The former probation officer and lecturer in social work was hired as a researcher by MEP Jill Evans. In 2003, Ms Wood realised her own political ambitions as she entered the Welsh Assembly as a regional AM for South Wales Central. Nine years later, the staunch republican - considered to be on the left of her party - was elected leader after promoting her economic vision for an independent Wales. Arguably her biggest personal triumph came in last year's Welsh Assembly elections when she won the Rhondda seat by beating the former Labour minister Leighton Andrews. In the 2015 general election campaign Ms Wood enjoyed significant UK media coverage but this high public profile did not translate to any increase in seats at Westminster - the party stayed on three. She is not standing in this election although there was speculation that she would run in the Rhondda. Party officials and members say the public like her and respond to her on the doorstep - but will this result in the party winning more seats this time round? Mark Williams - Liberal Democrats Mark Williams was born in Hertfordshire in 1966 where he lived until 1984 when he went to study politics at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth. On leaving university, he worked for the then Liberal MP for Ceredigion, Geraint Howells, before becoming a researcher to the Liberal group of peers in the House of Lords. After spells as a primary school teacher and deputy head teacher, he was elected to Parliament in 2005 when he won the Ceredigion seat from Plaid Cymru. Mr Williams remained a Lib Dem backbencher when Nick Clegg took the party into the Westminster coalition with the Conservatives in 2010. He was re-elected as the Lib Dems' sole MP in Wales in 2015. In 2016, he was named leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats in place of Kirsty Williams, who stepped down after a disastrous assembly election left her as the party's only remaining AM. Mr Williams is pro-EU and a strong supporter of devolution. Neil Hamilton - UKIP Neil Hamilton was born in Monmouthshire in 1949 and spent most of his childhood in Carmarthenshire. His father was a mining engineer and took part in the rescue effort at the Aberfan disaster of 1966 in which 144 people died, most of them children. He studied economics and politics at Aberystwyth University and went on to become a barrister. Mr Hamilton served as Conservative MP for the Cheshire seat of Tatton from 1983 to 1997. Anti-EU, he gained a reputation for being an outspoken MP and was a minister in John Major's government. He lost his seat in the 1997 general election to the independent challenger, Martin Bell, following the "cash for questions" scandal. While away from politics, Mr Hamilton has appeared on many celebrity TV and radio shows - often with his wife Christine - including Have I Got News For You? Mr Hamilton made his political comeback in 2016 when he was elected under the UKIP banner to represent the Mid and West Wales region in the Welsh Assembly , where he leads a group of five AMs. He has been a controversial figure in the assembly, calling two female AMs "political concubines" in the "harem" of First Minister Carwyn Jones. Mr Hamilton also apologised after complaints that he told an opposition AM that "suicide was an option" after she said how disappointed she was with the referendum vote for Brexit. BBC Wales Leaders' Debate - BBC One Wales, Tuesday 30 May at 20:30 BST Followed by reaction on BBC Two Wales at 22:00 BST

By Wild Wild here again, and I’ve got us another battle report in preparation for Crucible. For this tournament Rhyas’ full Rearguard theme list was in, as was Thagrosh the Messiah with the Archangel. The tournament was also notable for us as being the final event before we go to Crucible, and several of us were preparing, including two of my opponents. Once again, I forgot to take pictures, but luckily for my 2nd round, Anthony from Frozen Kommander was my opponent and took pictures of the end of each turn starting from his 1st turn. Check out his youtube channel here. That out of the way, time to go over the two lists I’m running. List One: Rearguard theme force, Tier 4 • Rhyas, Sigil of Everblight • Succubus • Nephilim Soldier • Typhon • Shredder • Blighted Nyss Swordsmen 10-man • Swordsmen Abbot and Champion • Blighted Ogrun Warspears 5-man • Blighted Warspear Chieftan • Blighted Ogrun Warspears 5-man • Blighted Warspear Chieftan • Blighted Nyss Shpeard • Warmonger War Chief • Warmonger War Chief Coming in at 50 points, Rearguard acts as not only my infantry list, but also my “Hold the Line” list. There are 3 major points to this tier. The first is at Tier 1, Stealth for the entire army turn 1. This alone wouldn’t sound so bad if Tier 4 didnt exist: All Blighted Ogrun models gain Advance Deployment. That’s 14 models 13-16” already in from the board edge….and stealthed. Heavy Infantry no less. Tier 3 is the icing on the cake, allowing Rhyas to place her Upkeep spells Occultation and Rapport for free before deployment. Standing in at FURY 5, this allows her to have both spells out and cast Dash out on Turn 1, allowing with proper placement her entire infantry army a SPD Buff. Her warbeasts don’t benefit, but since Typhon and the others are acting as a second line along with the Swordsmen, this is not an issue. Now the other list: List Two: Thagrosh the Messiah • Thagrosh the Messiah • Archangel • Succubus • Carnivean • Shredder • Shredder • Shredder • Spawning Vessel • Blighted Nyss Hex Hunters • Bayal, Hound of Everblight And here is my secondary, the beast heavy Thagrosh list. With the inclusion of the Archangel and the Carnivean, Thagrosh has the Hex Hunters as advance forces, though it does have skornergy in that Thagrosh is an Abomination, and the Hex Hunters + the Succubus are not. It’s a dangerous combination. Their job is to break through and assassinate the target, especially with Rabid + Manifest Destiny. With three rounds, my opponents were Trolls, Khador, and Trolls again. Sadly I did not get a chance to get the list for my first round, but I’ll go over and fill in as much as I can. On to round 1. Round 1: Scenario – Incursion An old favorite, this scenario changed from last year. The middle flag no longer disappears, though it doesn’t score as much, whether you dominate it or not it’s still the same. The outer flag if you dominate it is worth 2 points. As for the opponent’s list, in advance I must apologize, as I am missing about 8 points, working completely from memory. Also all the pictures for round 1 will be through vassal, so they’re approximations. • Grissel Bloodsong, Marshal of the Kriels • Troll Axer • Troll Impaler • Dire Troll Mauler • Trollkin Runebearer • Krielstone Bearer and Stonescribes • Krielstone Elder • Trollkin Warders 5-man • Trollkin Warders 5-man • Janissa Stonetide • Stone Scribe Chronicler Opting to go first, my Rhyas list is selected against this matchup. With Rhyas in the middle, my Swordsmen took the right while my Ogrun AD into the left and right flanks, with the War Chiefs directly in front of Rhyas. Swordsmen get their stealth and Typhon maintains his Rapport. His force mirrors my own with Grissel staying in the middle along with the Bearer unit behind and to the right, while the Warders stay on the flanks. The units directly opposing my own are their prey. Aside from one forest, terrain never came up. End of turn 1 comes up and he has popped his feat in anticipation of the Warspears coming in. Round 2 begins, and the left flag disappears, leaving only the right flag. The Warspears are fully walking into a wall against their prey, it was just a matter of could they break the brick. The combination of Assault, Charge Attacks, Prey and the number that could see the War Chiefs….resulted in the right flank holding their line, while the left flank lost more hitboxes and at least one death. The presence of the feat, their battle-driven, and the Krielstone made sure they weren’t breaking or losing anyone. The feat was also in play, and the combination of attacks ate away at my deathclock, leaving me with 30 minutes left. This was in direct opposition to my opponent’s, who had still 50 minutes. Also at all times, Janissa placed a wall in the way, I’m just being lazy to show it but it is there as an influence. I did however end my turn with the Nephilim Soldier basing the flag, forcing a response from my opponent and controlling the tempo of the game. On his turn, the War Chiefs are quickly dispatched of and the Swordsmen fall under attack by Grissel. Grissel also lands attacks by Rhyas, not hitting her directly however. The Shepard and Succubus both fall quickly in the blasts. The Mauler is the only one capable of responding to the Soldier in the end, and is forced to deal with the light, and kill it. It was also the only warbeast in dangerous distance of Grissel. Janissa prevents a potential assassination with her wall. Round 3 begins, and Typhon quickly deals a lot of damage but not killing the Mauler. Rhyas sees to that and steals the precious fury. Sprinting back to base to base with the flag, she makes a nearly critical mistake of keeping Occultation on her Swordsmen, though with other targets and priority its unknown which was the wiser move. The left flank forces the side to fold up more, but they’re keeping the body count even. The right flank however slowly with their heavily damaged side keeps dwindling the Wardens, thanks to the arrival of the Swordsmen. However the aura prevents a total collapse of the right flank. I do score a point for dominating the flag. Legion 1-0 Back to the Trollbloods, and with a combination of transfers and shots, force Rhyas to transfer to Typhon, and Typhon is eventually killed along with the Shredder. The Warspears on the left lose more, down to two men. The Axer and Krielstone bearers are in the fray now, tearing and jamming it up. Note by now most of the Swordsmen are dead, how many actually survived, I do not remember. But the Prey is kept as the Warspears who did not take the brunt on the right side barely get damaged. Of special note is an AOE that did not hit Rhyas but did create a patch of rough terrain at a point between herself and Typhon before he died. I am no longer in control of the point, but nothing is in base to base. Round 4, and endgame is upon us. My force is no longer capable of taking out the caster. However, my front line did do something, prevent the Trolls from advancing to the flags. The right flag is unmolested, and while unable to be reached by Dash, is capable of a full sprint from Rhyas to get there. Knowing that my army can last for one more turn and is much faster, I put it into motion. Of EXTREME Special note is the time at the start of this round: 10 minutes left. Only critical movements were done, as the last Swordsmen fought and killed Krielstone Bearers. The Axer is the only thing capable of contesting it at this point, and is not a heavy warbeast. His turn consists of killing the last few swordsmen left in the way of the Axer, and running the Axer to get close to Rhyas, preventing the Final 2 points as I dominated and scored for 3-0 on my turn. The final round, and with only 5 minutes left Rhyas cuts herself for her 5, and kills the Axer. The sprint caps the objective and ends the game. Time left: 3 minutes on my clock, about 17 left on his. The second round coming soon….

in October 2014 after videos of the acts were found She will also serve time for stabbing someone with a fork and biting a child She was let off with The young woman who had sex with a dog three times to 'arouse' her partner has been let off on probation after the court heard she told a psychologist: 'This has ruined my life'. Jenna Louise Driscoll, a 27-year-old Brisbane waitress, choked back tears as a District Court judge handed down a probation order for charges including bestiality. The frizzy-haired waitress breathed a huge sigh of relief upon learning she would walk free. Jenna Louise Driscoll, 27, was let off with a suspended sentence for bestiality at the Brisbane District Court in Queensland on Monday (pictured at hearing last Friday) 'Your conduct in the bestiality offences was repugnant,' Judge Terry Martin said. She had sex with the pitbull terrier on three occasions - in January, March and April of 2014. Videos of the appalling acts were found on her phone by police while she was being investigated for drug trafficking. In his sentencing, the judge said it seemed the bestiality occurred 'in the context of your partner wanting to be aroused by watching such appalling conduct'. 'You were clearly a willing participant in acts of sexual intercourse with the dog,' he said. Driscoll was formally charged in 2014 after police found videos of her having sex with a dog Driscoll was, however, convicted of stabbing a woman with a fork and biting a child, causing minor injuries. She was also handed a two-and-a-half-year suspended jail sentence for drug trafficking, which she 'used to pay the rent and other living expenses'. Her lawyers had argued she had suffered from the publicity of her crimes - providing the court with news articles and a list of Google links. The defence also referred to the case of Harriet Wran - the daughter of a former New South Wales premier - where a judge considered the effect of huge media attention. The Brisbane woman spent the weekend behind bars after pleading guilty to three bestiality charges and other matters But Judge Martin had little sympathy, telling the fidgety redhead: 'The adverse publicity is a result of your conduct'. The judge said Driscoll had a dysfunctional childhood and was subjected to physical and emotional abuse growing up. The court heard she was studying the Year 12 to improve her lot in life. Judge Martin told the court she 'may or may not' be remorseful over her actions but a jail sentence could see her exposed to 'corrupting influence'. 'This has ruined my life. I very much regret what I've done,' Driscoll said in a psychologist's report read out in court. She was also described as extremely embarrassed, anxious and depressed in the report. Driscoll had pleaded guilty to all charges. She had been charged after police discovered three videos of her having inappropriate sexual contact with the dog Under the order, she will have to undergo regular drug tests and must abstain from using illicit substances. Driscoll had spent the weekend behind bars while Judge Martin considered his sentence, but not before branding her acts ‘repulsive’ and ‘against the order of nature’. Driscoll appeared in court on Monday afternoon wearing dark glasses, a grey top and skirt.

A survey of jihadis in Austria reveal 21 percent of people who have either traveled to join Islamic State in Syria and Iraq or planned on doing it are women. The study from the Austrian Green Party and the Ministry of the Interior reveals 59 out of 280 prospective ISIS members are women. Close to half of responders who have been prevented from leaving Austria to join ISIS, 22 out of 50, were women. “The number is unpleasant,” Berivan Aslan, a Green Party member of parliament, told The Local. “I did not expect the percentage of female IS-sympathizers to be as high as 21 percent.” The figure in Austria is significantly higher than in Belgium, where just 17 percent of participants in a similar study were women. Aslan said the idea of being the wife of a “hero” is appealing to young Muslim women in Europe. “Disoriented young women in Western Europe feel attracted to IS-fighters and imagine that being on the side of a fighter building their own ‘state’ would afford oneself stability and meaning,” Aslan told The Local. “In the Islamic Statement, women are given the role not only of the wife of a ‘hero’, but are also used as fighters and suicide bombers.” All-female ISIS cells have recently emerged in France, where a group of women were arrested after a car full of gas cylinders were found outside the Notre Dame church in September. Follow Jacob on Twitter Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – A nationwide warrant has been issued for a Minnesota couple who allegedly received more than $167,000 worth of public assistance from Minnesota while living in Florida on a $1.2 million yacht. “I’ve never ridden on a yacht that nice, and I bet most of us haven’t, but they were living on it while they were collecting public assistance,” said Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman. Colin Chisholm III and Andrea Chisholm are charged with a one count of wrongfully obtaining public assistance more than $35,000, a felony charge. According to Hennepin County Attorney’s office, between Jan. 1, 2005, and May 31, 2012, Colin Chisholm III, 62, and Andrea Chisholm, 54, received the public assistance illegally from several government programs designed to help the poor. According to the criminal complaints, over the years, the Chisholms received medical assistance, welfare payments and food stamp benefits. They also lied about where they were living, who they were living with and their source of income on more than a dozen forms they filled out for the state of Minnesota and Hennepin County in order to get the assistance. During an investigation by the Hennepin County Human Services & Public Health Department (HSPHD) Fraud Unit, it was discovered that Colin Chisholm owned a business and Andrea Chisholm owned a dog kennel which bred and sold championship dogs. The criminal complaints show that hundreds of thousands of dollars came through the business accounts Colin Chisholm III controlled as chief executive officer of the TCN Network, which claims to provide satellite TV and broadband service for countries in the Caribbean. “He created all sorts of false companies, claimed he was a Scottish heir,” Freeman said. “It’s outrageous.” When they first applied for welfare benefits, the couple listed their residence as Andrea’s mother’s home in Minneapolis. However, shortly after getting approved, they moved to Florida. They remained in that state for at least 28 months, first on their $1.2 million yacht, and then moving to a house, officials said. They collected welfare from Florida, as well as Minnesota during that time, which people are prohibited from receiving simultaneously. Furthermore, in depositions for a civil suit over the ownership of the yacht, Colin and Andrea testified that they lived in Connecticut and Florida, and never mentioned Minnesota. During this time, neither the yacht or residences in Florida were reported to Minnesota officials. In 2006 and January 2007, Andrea’s prenatal care was paid for by the state and their welfare benefits increased. According to the Hennepin County Attorney’s office, the Chisholms returned to Minnesota in April 2007 and applied for more welfare benefits. The couple continued to receive assistance when they moved into a luxury home in Deephaven, Minn., with Andrea’s grandparents, Eloise and Francis Heidecker, in March 2008. They moved into another home in Deephaven on Lake Minnetonka after being evicted from the first home when Francis died, officials said. During this time, the Chisholms hid the fact that they lived with Eloise Heidecker, as Andrea controlled the bank accounts of her elderly grandmother. “It astonishes me, I had no idea this could ever really happen,” said Calleigh King, a neighbor of the Chisholms. “They’ve just been the kindest people ever.” After the HSPHD fraud unit received a report that the Chisholms were employed and they failed to provide tax documents when asked, Hennepin County terminated all welfare benefits to the Chisholms at the end of March 2012. Medical assistance was cut off at the end of May 2012. “It is truly outrageous when persons of considerable means steal from the government and all of us taxpayers through abusing the social welfare system,” Freeman said. Prosecutors will ask that the judge be allowed to impose a longer sentence than the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines call for because the Chisholms committed a major economic offense.

BY: Follow @LizWFB Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have developed a system that can predict the "psychological status" of users with smartphones and hope to private companies to bring the invention to the market. The technology appeared on a list of NIH inventions published in the Federal Register that are now available to be licensed by private companies. The government allows companies to license inventions resulting from federal research in order to expedite their arrival on the marketplace. The system uses smartphones to ask people how they are doing mentally during the day and based on the results can "deliver an automated intervention" if necessary. "The NIH inventors have developed a mobile health technology to monitor and predict a user's psychological status and to deliver an automated intervention when needed," according to the notice published Wednesday. "The technology uses smartphones to monitor the user's location and ask questions about psychological status throughout the day." "Continuously collected ambulatory psychological data are fused with data on location and responses to questions," the NIH said. "The mobile data are combined with geospatial risk maps to quantify exposure to risk and predict a future psychological state. The future predictions are used to warn the user when he or she is at especially high risk of experiencing a negative event that might lead to an unwanted outcome (e.g., lapse to drug use in a recovering addict)." The NIH said the technology has potential commercial applications for "real-time behavior monitoring" and "therapeutic delivery of an intervention via a mobile device." Researchers developed the system from a project that tracked the mood and cravings of drug users in Baltimore. The $8.9 million federal study sought to develop algorithms that could "automatically detect behavioral events (such as episodes of drug use or stress) without requiring self-report." The NIH said the app is currently being used for drug addiction interventions, but that the "inventors are also seeking to test the technology for other health applications." Request for comment from the NIH was not returned by press time.

“Retired” actress Amanda Bynes is quickly gaining on Lindsay Lohan for the coveted title of most troubled former child star. While Lohan has your run-of-the-mill substance abuse issues, the former Nickelodeon star has been reportedly been wreaking havoc in New York City during a spree of bizarre behavior. Over the weekend, Bynes reportedly went to an adult gymnastics class in New York City and “showed up in fishnets and a leotard that looked like lingerie,” Page Six reports. Bynes was allegedly “muttering to herself” and then “burst into tears when she attempted a cartwheel and her dark-colored wig fell off.” “She immediately started acting strangely,” a “source” told Page Six. “She lined up with the other gymnasts, and each took their turn to perform a roll. But Amanda just walked out on the mat, was spinning around in circles and mumbling to herself.” Bynes was then asked to leave the class and was reportedly escorted out. The incident is similar to the time she was allegedly asked to leave a spinning class after she took off her shirt — revealing nothing but a black bra — and began applying make-up in the gym mirror. Bynes tweeted last week that she was planning on suing some gossip sites and magazines for claiming she had mental health issues. She cleared that up by posting that she doesn’t have mental health issues, but that she just “has an eating disorder.” Follow Taylor on Twitter

Everyone wants to feel intelligent. We watch Jeopardy!, test ourselves with New York Times crosswords, and check our RSS feeds each day for the news we need to know. Sometimes, we even start to feel pretty smart. But then it happens: Your friend references a book in classic “Amirite?” style, and you have no idea how to respond. Smiling and nodding is the obvious, safe choice, but that doesn’t prevent the paranoia. Your facade has cracked. In truth, it’s likely that no one noticed, and of the few who did, even fewer care that you aren’t familiar with the book. But you still feel the burn of not knowing what is, evidently, a prominent work of literature. The truth is that even the nerdiest book nerds haven’t read everything in the literary canon. If you’re feeling particularly inferior to your bookish friends, though, reading the titles on this list will help. Although they are not, by any means, the most influential works in the canon — (and while I strongly encourage you to read Shakespeare, Milton, and Beowulf) — the 20 books included here are some of the most-talked-about today. Read them, and you probably won’t miss a bookish reference for a long, long time. Image: Stocksy

Editor's note: This article was updated with new figures on procurement. MOSCOW — Despite the pressure of Western sanctions, the sharp devaluation of the Russian ruble and runaway inflation at home, Russian defense firms featured in this year's Defense News Top 100 ranking saw surging revenues as exports reached new highs and the government poured money into defense procurement. Russia's largest defense firm, air defense concern Almaz-Antey, saw revenues rise 10 percent to $9.2 billion, up $883.5 million over 2013. The Tactical Missile Corp., maker of air-to-air systems, saw the most drastic increase with a 48.6 percent rise in revenue to $2.8 billion in 2014. Other Russian firms that made the ranking were the United Aircraft Corp., which owns Sukhoi, MiG and Irkut, and saw revenues rise 7 percent to $6.2 billion; Russian Helicopters, which finished at $3.96 billion, up 16 percent over 2013; and the United Engine-building Company, which saw a 25 percent increase over 2013 revenues to $3.3 billion in 2014. Other firms that made the ​ list were tank manufacturer Uralvagonzavod, which reported defense revenues of $1.54 billion in 2014 — a 1 percent rise — and electronics component manufacturer RTI, rising 15 percent to $947 million. Russia's shipbuilding conglomerate, the United Shipbuilding Corp., declined to participate in the ranking. The impressive rise in revenues for Russian defense manufacturers, despite the pressure of Russia's economic crisis and Western sanctions, was likely due to record-setting export revenues and government procurement expenditures as President Vladimir Putin's decade-long $350 billion military rearmament drive kicked into high gear. Export and Procurement Surge Russian firms exported a record $13.2 billion worth of military hardware abroad in 2014, continuing a nearly 10-year ​year-on-year rise in export revenues for Russia's defense industry. Exports were largely unharmed by sanctions, as Russia's major trading partners are non-Western nations with close political ties to Moscow, such as China, India, Algeria and Venezuela. At the same time, Russian procurement hit a new high, with about 2 trillion rubles (US $33.2 billion) spent on new equipment in 2014, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in April. This was a large increase over the 2013 state defense order, which Medvedev said was valued at around 1.5 trillion rubles. Devaluation and Inflation Although Russian firms saw soaring revenues, Western sanctions did have an impact on the industry, though their effects are not readily apparent from the revenue data. Sanctions combined with a sharp drop in the global price of oil, Russia's main export commodity, ​ to send the value of the ruble plummeting by 40 percent and inflation soaring in 2014. This is a bigger problem for the Russian Defense Ministry than it is for the defense industry, since equipment is now more expensive to produce and Putin's rearmament can afford almost half of what it was intended to two years ago, said Ruslan Pukhov, head of the Center for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a Moscow-based defense industry think tank and analytics firm. The impact of sanctions on the defense industry will take longer to manifest itself since sanctions were ​limited mostly to a loss of access to Western credit markets and advanced component imports. "The industry was taking money from Russian banks and loans were guaranteed by the state, but the banks were taking cheap money from the West and selling them to Russian defense industry enterprises, and now the majority of these channels are cut," Pukhov said. Russia has launched an import substitution drive to spur the creation of domestic alternatives to foreign procured components, but the process is expected to take two to three years. The government is working to secure advances for defense enterprises working on import substitution to finance the research and development ​ and the investments needed to launch domestic production lines of components ranging from optics to ship diesel turbines, but not everything can be substituted. Pukhov pointed to production equipment and machine-building tools as one area that Russia will struggle to replace, since much of the know-how was lost in the wake of the Soviet collapse in the 1990s. The problems will take longer to manifest themselves, but they have had immediate impacts in the field of shipbuilding, pointed out Dmitry Gorenburg, a Russian military expert at the Virginia-based CNA think tank. "The impact of sanctions on shipbuilding has been quite significant, because the gas turbines for a number of frigate classes were being manufactured in Ukraine," which imposed an arms export embargo on Russia shortly after Moscow annexed Crimea, Gorenburg said. The loss of Ukrainian-made turbines has forced a production halt on the construction of around eight ships of the Admiral Gorshkov- and Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates. But as Gorenburg notes, the EU arms embargo also deprived Russia of German-made engines being used to construct the new Gremyashchy-class corvettes. Only two of the ships have been built and the eight remaining ships ordered for the class have been canceled. "In general, a lot of the problems caused by sanctions are disruptions to the supply chains," Gorenburg said. "Even if they can find new sources, they still have to set those up and they probably won't be identical to those found in Western Europe." Email: mbodner@defensenews.com

Clarifying The Trustwave CA Policy Update We've seen a number of comments and questions on Twitter regarding a recent Trustwave CA Policy Update to our legal repository (https://ssl.trustwave.com/CA). This update discusses a subordinate root revocation. This is a proactive revocation, of the only certificate we issued for these purposes, that is the result of careful consideration in light of recent policy changes and the changing PKI landscape. This single certificate was issued for an internal corporate network customer and not to a 'government', 'ISP' or to 'law enforcement'. It was to be used within a private network within a data loss prevention (DLP) system. The subordinate certificate was subject to a Certification Practice Statement (CPS), Subscriber Agreement and Relying Party Agreement crafted by Trustwave after an audit of the customer physical security, network security, and security policies. The system was created using dedicated hardware device designed for SSL proxy and acceleration, with a FIPS-140-2 Level 3 compliant Hardware Security Module (HSM) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_security_module) for subordinate root storage and for the purpose of private key generation of the re-signed SSL certificates. This means that once the trusted subordinate root was placed into the device it could not be extracted. Additionally, when the system would accept an outbound SSL connection from within the customer network, and negotiate the session with the server outside the customers network, the private key for the resulting re-signed SSL certificate (that is presented to the internal network) would be generated in the HSM and only live for the duration of the SSL request. No party had access to the re-signed SSL certificate private keys at any time, nor could they gain access to them. This is what prevented the customer from being able to perform ad hoc issuance of certificate for any domain and use them outside of this hardware and infrastructure. Trustwave has decided to be open about this decision as well as stating that we will no longer enable systems of this type and are effectively ending this short journey into this type of offering. We take information security very seriously as a trusted CA and we felt that a few clarifications were in order to help everyone understand our actions.

President Trump made his debut at the United Nations on Tuesday, addressing the U.N. General Assembly at its annual opening. Afterward, media headlines and news coverage of the speech focused on Trump’s absurd (but admittedly amusing) new nickname for Kim Jong Un, “Rocket Man,” and his threat that the United States is willing to “totally destroy” North Korea to protect itself and its allies. The mainstream media, liberal elites, and the international community have been doing a lot of handwringing about Trump’s rhetoric and his talk of going it alone. They also had a lot to say about his comments concerning the Iran nuclear deal, whose dissolution the president has long desired. Although the focus was on Trump’s supposedly dangerous isolationism and nationalism, what’s really upsetting them is that he dared to say what no one is supposed to say: that the U.N. is broken and that it is unrealistic and dangerous to have a world without borders and without national sovereignty. In other words, Trump violated the Emperor Has No Clothes rule. The Importance of Governments Serving Their People One of the major themes of Trump’s U.N. speech was national sovereignty, both of the United States and of foreign countries: “Our government’s first duty is to its people, to our citizens, to serve their needs, to ensure their safety, to preserve their rights, and to defend their values. As president of the United States, I will always put America first. Just like you, as the leaders of your countries, will always and should always put your countries first.” Although the international community gives lip service to the idea of national sovereignty and the U.N.’s role in defending it, this concept fundamentally conflicts with the liberal belief that the world should be progressing toward a kind of borderless global nationalism, in which no one country can claim superiority over another. That’s the real reason Trump was so roundly criticized for saying that he’s willing to go it alone on North Korea. Trump also dared to praise America for its enduring legacy as a free democracy. His speech was devoid of the kind of America-bashing that President Obama was fond of, especially in front of international audiences. Instead, Trump asserted that the United States should “shine as an example for everyone to watch,” which indeed it should. He also praised the 230th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution as the “foundation of peace, prosperity, and freedom” for Americans and millions around the world who have embraced it as a model of good government. No doubt, this kind of talk disturbs the American Left and international bureaucracies, both of which have grown comfortable with the idea that American exceptionalism is a myth based on an ugly and misguided sense of supremacy and pseudo-colonialism. This goes hand-in-hand with “nationalism” becoming a dirty word that can only be interpreted as a form of fascism. Thus it has become bigoted to desire defensible borders, whether here in the United States or in Europe, and the idea of loving one’s country is now a touchy and uncomfortable subject, something Trump specifically brought up at the end of his speech. The international community has believed in a sort of fictional world since the end of World War II, in which national sovereignty was to be ceded in exchange for peace on earth. Except no one really defined whose peace. Neither did they consider that different countries have different ambitions, not to mention different values that are sometimes irreconcilable. There can never be a utopic one-world order because countries are made up of people, and people have ambition, vice, and self-interest. The best that any world order can do is contain these impulses; it can never eradicate them. Since the U.N.’s founding in 1945, we’ve seen that China and Russia, as permanent members on the U.N. Security Council, have repeatedly and consistently vetoed efforts by the council to take action against rogue members or intervene effectively in genocidal conflicts (like the Syrian civil war). Everyone knows this, yet no one dares to say it for fear it will expose the U.N. for the failure that it is. In light of these problems, Trump stated that he would work outside the U.N. if it became necessary, if the United States and its allies continue to be threatened by North Korea and the body doesn’t do more to prevent that. That makes sense. It’s absurd to defer to an international body that, with the exception of the first Gulf War, has never resolved a foreign conflict and is not now taking the necessary steps to stop Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Trump called out the rogue regimes represented at the U.N. and “have hijacked the very systems that are supposed to advance them.” He pointed specifically to the countries that sit on the U.N. Human Rights Council that have terrible human rights records themselves, like Cuba and Saudi Arabia. He also criticized the U.N. for delays and stagnation in resolving conflicts as a result of “bureaucracy and process.” Trump Also Condoned International Cooperation Although his speech promoted American values and interests, and contained a healthy dose of criticism for the U.N., Trump’s speech wasn’t a total rejection of the U.N. or the international community. Trump called for member states to work together to help protect the sovereignty of other nations, like Ukraine, and protect the international shipping lanes in the South China Sea. He praised the mission of the U.N., urging that we “must work together and confront together those who threatens us with chaos, turmoil, and terror,” and calling for “all nations to work together to isolate the Kim regime.” He said that although the United States is ready to act unilaterally, he hoped that wouldn’t become necessary because he held out hope that the U.N. would step up and function as it was intended. Rather than slamming the very existence of the U.N. or threatening to leave (as he has done with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), Trump praised the founding of the international body, calling it a pillar of “peace, security, and prosperity.” He urged the U.N. to make a collective effort to improve, in the hope that one day it would more accountable and be able to effectively advocate for “human dignity and freedom around the world.” That doesn’t sound like the words of an isolationist to me. Trump’s message was not a black and white case of promoting isolationism and denigrating internationalism. After all, he said plainly, “As long as I hold this office, I will defend America’s interests above all else, but in fulfilling our obligations to our nations, we also realize that it’s in everyone’s interests to seek the future where all nations can be sovereign, prosperous, and secure.” He sees the need for both, or so it seems. Despite Trump’s efforts to make a generous nod to the U.N., notwithstanding all the failings he pointed out, half the country (and much of the world) only heard what it wanted to hear—the speech of a dangerous isolationist who threatened to attack North Korea. That way, they don’t have to talk about the real meat of the speech, which shined a spotlight on the manifest and longstanding failures of the U.N.

The upcoming Men’s EHF EURO 2016 in Poland will be the chance for all handball fans to see some new faces in European handball. Some of them are already known from their performance in the clubs and national teams, but still they are Under 23, ready to improve and conquere handball world in years to come. Handball-Planet.com made a list of BEST 7 youngstars (generation 1994 and younger) for the upcoming event which we would like to see. The leader of the team is Handball-Planet Young World Player 2015 – Sanders Sagosen. RIGHT BACK: Fabian Wiede (Germany) PLAYMAKER: Sanders Sagosen (Norway) LEFT BACK: Vuko Borozan (Montenegro) LINE-PLAYER: Blaž Blagotinšek (Slovenia) LEFT WING: Rune Dahmke (Germany) RIGHT WING: Darko Đukić (Serbia) GOALKEEPER: Torbjorn Bergerud (Norway) Our list didn’t include some names who will miss the tournament (Lasse Andersson or Paul Drux). However, like in the list of BEST 7 “old guns”, we couldn’t find the left wing player (1994 and younger) who will be close to the final squad, so we decided to put Rune Dahmke (1993). On the other side, the lack of young goalies is more than visible, so our choice is young Norwegian Torbjorn Bergerud, who probably won’t get a chance to play in poland.

LeBron James has been ridiculed after people pointed out that his rant targeting “uneducated” Trump voters was itself full of linguistic errors that suggest James isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. “And am I saying that the people of Ohio wasn’t educated?” the NBA star pondered. “Am I saying that some of the other states that voted for him was uneducated? They could have been or they could not have been. But that doesn’t mean it was the right choice.” The meme below was created to highlight how James’ rant against dumb Trump voters didn’t exactly make him sound like a rocket scientist, containing at least five linguistic errors in the space of four sentences. “LeBron, please see me after class,” the note sardonically ends. Nobody expects LeBron to sound like the Queen of England, but if he’s going to throw shade at Trump voters for their lack of intelligence, he has to expect to get some back. James was the most high profile figure to attack Trump over his NFL comments in the hours after the president made them in Alabama on Friday night. As with many of the celebrities who threw their weight behind ‘take a knee’ – James campaigned for Hillary Clinton in Ohio, hilariously introducing her as ‘President Hillary Clinton’ at a rally in Cleveland just days before the election. SUBSCRIBE on YouTube: Follow on Twitter: Follow @PrisonPlanet Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paul.j.watson.71 ********************* Paul Joseph Watson is the editor at large of Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com.

New York City is a battlefield. I know what you’re thinking — psychological warfare, the endless grim clashing of economic forces — but I am being literal. When we ponder America’s defining war, the Revolution, we think of Bunker Hill, or Saratoga, or Lexington and Concord, yet its largest battle, a vast and ferociously fought chess match in August and September of 1776, right after the formal declaration of the colonies’ independence, ranged over what are now the five boroughs. As to why the place was so hotly contested, you already know the answer. Then, as now, as ever, New York City was the center of it all. Both sides believed that if the British took control of New York and the Hudson River, the American resistance would likely collapse. The battle isn’t as well known today as other encounters during the Revolution, in part because the city has done an excellent job of removing most traces of it. Where Boston sets aside hallowed historic precincts and wends a handsome brick Freedom Trail through its Revolutionary sites, New York City buries its past under mountains of concrete and steel. Hills have been flattened, islands swallowed up by landfill, shorelines redrawn. But I was determined to find Revolutionary New York, and I did eventually, after a fashion. It helped that I had an organizing principle. I was researching a book, and, since my book isn’t about military strategy I wasn’t trying to cover all of the complex maneuverings of troops. I write narrative history, which to me means focusing on people’s lives. Getting to know the places in which those lives unfolded helps me in my efforts to get into the individuals’ heads and hearts.

Porsche #918 of 918 units has been built. The last one. If you had plans to buy a brand new Porsche 918 Spyder, you’d better hurry because Porsche has just built its last unit. According to The Telegraaf, the last Porsche 918 Spyder rolled off the assembly line earlier yesterday (June. 18, 2015) and its burgundy. All in all, its been 21 months since the Porsche 918 was put into production. Porsche has been working around the clock to produce the number of units planned within a reasonable amount of time. To make one, it takes the work of exactly 100 specialists about 100 man hours from start to finish. On average, that works out to be about 1.4 Porsche 918’s built everyday. There are still plenty of Porsche 918s left to buy, it’s just that you’ll have to secure your spot in line.According to Porsche, it’s on a first come, first serve basis. That means you’ll have your pick of the available Porsche 918’s and don’t have to take necessarily the next one that comes off the assembly line. Porsche released some interesting figures attached to sales so far. For example, did you know that 30 percent of all Porsche 918 sales so far have gone to Americans? That works out to 297 units that have landed on American soil (leave some for the rest of the world, why don’t you!) The Porsche 918 is a tour-de-force that honestly only comes around once in a lifetime. Like a lot of the other examples coming out at this golden age of supercars, it’s a hybrid. That means technically with the battery power available, it can run 12 miles on electricity alone. But those batteries are for strictly for performance and when tied to its power unit (internal combustion engine), there’s a combined 887 HP and 944 lbs-ft of torque available. That’s courtesy of a 4.6 L V8 and two electric motors on the front and rear axle paired to a seven-speed PDK. MSRP for this German hybrid? $847, 975. Better bring your Visa Black Card. And just for old times sake and to lament the fact that the Nurburgring is closed to any future lap records (as this goes to “print”) here’s the 918 straight whipping it around the ‘Ring.

Police dashcam video showing the arrest of a former Miami-Dade teacher suspected of driving drunk with her child in the backseat last month was exclusively obtained by NBC 6 Friday. In the video, which is nearly two and a half hours long, Saryna Parker, a former 8th grade science teacher at South Dade Middle School, appears to be stumbling during a field sobriety test and slurring her words as she speaks, telling a Florida Highway Patrol trooper she wanted to kiss him. "I want to kiss you. If you don't stop looking at me like that, I'm going to kiss you," Parker tells the trooper. According to the arrest report from the incident, during the test, Parker was unsteady, swayed, failed to follow directions, stumbled, and at one point touched the trooper on the back and said "I feel like I want to kiss you." 'I Want to Kiss You': Video Shows Teacher During DUI Arrest Police dashcam video showing the night a former Miami-Dade teacher suspected of driving drunk with her child in the backseat was arrested was exclusively obtained by NBC 6 Friday. (Published Friday, April 21, 2017) Parker was placed under arrest, and as she sat in back of the patrol car, she "violently kicked me in the groin with her right leg then continued to kick my right rear passenger side door," the officer wrote in the report. In the dashcam video, Parker can be heard admitting she kicked the trooper but says she was kicking the door. She can also be heard complaining about the students she taught. "I’m so f---ing tired of dealing with these p---- a-- teenagers...let me go home for a while," Parker says in the video. FHP officers responded to a report about a suspect crashing into a car on South Dixie Highway near Southwest 182nd Avenue in Homestead on March 19. School board officials said Parker was a probationary teacher and has been fired. She will never be allowed to apply to Miami-Dade Schools again, officials said. Parker was driving her Cadillac when she slammed into the back of a van, according to the arrest report. During the traffic investigation, the responding officer observed Parker slurring her speech and noticed the smell of alcohol on her breath, and saw a 10-year-old child in her backseat, the report said. Want to Spend a Night in Jail? It Just Takes $40 Want to spend the night in the slammer? Minnesota's Chisago County Sheriff's Office can help make it happen. The department is letting people stay overnight inside the new Public Safety Center to see the facility and help deputies train before inmates arrive. It just costs $40 per person. (Published Friday, April 27, 2018) The former teacher said she "wasn't driving" and said she needed to use the restroom, the report continued. The officer tried to grab her arm and she "violently pulled away" and started walking toward Burger King to use the bathroom, the report said. The 43-year-old was booked into jail and later released on bond. She faces charges of DUI, DUI with property damage, careless driving and battery on a police officer. Police initially charged her with child abuse for having her child in the car, but prosecutors did not pursue that charge.

July 19, 2016 Tickets to Tacotopia at the Track are $45 if purchased online in advance and provide entry to the track and unlimited tacos. Promo code SDVILLE saves $5 per ticket. Admission for this event is open to all ages and no pets are allowed. Children age 2 and under get in for free, and children's tickets are available for those ages 3-10 for $20 (must be accompanied by an adult). Ticket holders are asked to bring a hard copy of their Tacotopia at the Track ticket to The Reader booth at will-call, located near the Run Admission Gates (look for signage), in order to receive their wristband and an entry ticket to the races. Get your tickets to Tacotopia at the Track before they sell out. For more info and to scoop your passes, visit sandiegoreader.com/tacotopia-at-the-track Participating eateries serving tacos at Tacotopia at the Track include Aquis es Texcoco BBQ, City Tacos, Common Theory Public House, El Paisa Mexican Grill, El Trebol Marisco's, Encinita's Fish Shop, Henry's Pub, La Guerrerense, Lolita's Mexican Food, Lucha Libre, Mariscos El Pulpo, The Patio Group, Parq Restaurant, Meze Greek Fusion, Puesto, Salud, South Park Brewing Company, The Taco Stand, Tacos Kokopelli, TJ Oyster Bar, Tostadas North Park, Un Mundo Mexican Grill and many more! At Tacotopia at the Track, after you eat your weight in tacos and bask in the San Diego sunshine, there will be a live concert from 311 and Matisyahu (for those 18 and over) which is included with admission! There will also be a full cash bar serving beer, wine and cocktails.Tickets to Tacotopia at the Track are $45 if purchased online in advance and provide entry to the track and unlimited tacos. Promo codesaves $5 per ticket. Admission for this event is open to all ages and no pets are allowed. Children age 2 and under get in for free, and children's tickets are available for those ages 3-10 for $20 (must be accompanied by an adult). Ticket holders are asked to bring a hard copy of their Tacotopia at the Track ticket to The Reader booth at will-call, located near the Run Admission Gates (look for signage), in order to receive their wristband and an entry ticket to the races. The San Diego Reader is continuing its search to find the best taco in Southern California, and on Saturday, August 13, over 40 top eateries from America's Finest City, Tijuana & Los Angeles (including Ensenada's famed La Guerrerense!) will compete for bragging rights at the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club at the inaugural Tacotopia at the Track . There is also a free concert by 311 & Matisyahu following the event! We're giving away 2 tickets to this already-almost-sold-out event and also offering promo codefor $5 savings on any ticket type. Read on for all the details and be sure to enter.The participants for this event were carefully curated and the best part about Tacotopia is that attendees pick the champion. After trying signature tacos from as many restaurants as possible, each attendee will place their token in a voting box on the table of their favorite vendor. The vendor who receives the most tokens wins the title of "Best Taco"!

This is the bizarre moment an Asian woman praised Pauline Hanson by comparing her to both Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler. The woman's gushing praise of the controversial One Nation leader was captured in an interview with ABC's The Link presenter Stan Grant. He spoke to residents of New South Wales in a segment that aired on Friday night asking them what they think of Ms Hanson. While one man dismissed her as 'too anti-everything,' an Asian woman – who was not named – was filmed in a shopping centre as she heaped praise on Senator Hanson. This woman heaped praise Pauline Hanson in an interview with The Link - comparing her to Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler 'Pauline Hanson is straightforward,' she said. 'She's sincere, she's not a hypocrite. If she doesn't like you, I don't like you.' The woman continued to compliment Ms Hanson by comparing her qualities with two other nationalistic politicians she admires - the current President of the United States and the leader of Nazi Germany. Speaking about why she likes Ms Hanson, the woman continued: 'Just like Trump. I like Trump. Donald Trump is sincere. 'He's sincere, straightforward. If he tells you you're not okay, you're not okay – not okay for America. You're destroying our country.' The unnamed woman described the One Nation leader as 'sincere' and 'straightforward' While some called Ms Hanson (pictured) 'too anti-everything', the woman continued to compliment her Asked if she would like to hear more Trump-inspired rhetoric in Australia, she replied: 'Yes, yes.' She added: 'See like that speech he had yesterday, that was great. Yes, it sounded like Hitler, but you know, Hitler loved Germany.' Later on the programme, American political analyst and author Thomas Frank said the woman's comments were 'alarming'. 'Oh my goodness, well, it sounds like you're going to get your own Donald Trump here soon,' he told Mr Grant. 'That's a little bit alarming. 'Everything those people said, you take out the accent and some of the slang and that's exactly the kind of thing you heard from Americans during the last election cycle.' The woman compared Ms Hanson to other nationalistic politicians Donald Trump (pictured left) and Adolf Hitler (right) Ms Hanson has said that Australians are calling out for a 'strong leader' like Vladimir Putin Meanwhile, Ms Hanson herself recently praised a controversial leader – Russian President Vladimir Putin. She insisted that Australians are calling out for a 'strong leader' like Putin in an interview on Insiders. 'I listened to a speech he gave in Parliament,' she told Insiders host Barrie Cassidy. 'Even the people here in Australia were saying, 'I wish we had a leader like that here, I wish someone would stand up and fight for this country.' 'That's what people expect.'

The minister responsible for Centrelink has been cleared of any wrongdoing following allegations he shared private information without consent. The Australian Federal Police has told Human Services Minister Alan Tudge it will not be investigating the claims any further. Labor asked the AFP in March to investigate whether Mr Tudge had broken the law when he released an individual's personal Centrelink details to the media. "The Australian Federal Police will not be pursuing Labor's allegations that I broke privacy law," Mr Tudge said in a statement on Monday. The AFP's assistant commissioner made it clear that the information released by my office and prepared by my department was approved for release and was therefore not an unauthorised disclosure, Mr Tudge said. "The decision to end the consideration of this referral is no surprise." Mr Tudge reiterated that the law allows for the release of limited information to respond to incorrect or misleading statements in the media about specific cases to maintain the integrity of government programs. He branded Labor's referral as a political stunt and part of a "scare campaign". © AAP 2019

Stevie Wonder will cancel his scheduled appearance at a US fundraiser for "friends" of the Israeli military after facing flack from pro-Palestinian activists, JTA reported Wednesday. Just days after Israel's offensive in Gaza, it was announced this week that the singer was due to perform at this year's Friends of the Israel Defense Forces benefit, which takes place in Los Angeles on Dec. 6. Grammy-winning producer and composer David Foster was scheduled to conduct an orchestra to accompany the headliner, according to Arutz Sheva. It is unclear who might now replace the R&B legend as the fundraiser's main attraction. JTA wrote of Wonder's reported change of heart: "Wonder’s representatives will claim that he did not know the nature of the group, the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, and that he believes such a performance would be incongruent with his status as a UN “Messenger of Peace,” according to a source who has read email exchanges between Wonder’s representatives and organizers of the event." With tickets listed at $1,000 a head, the event is expected to raise millions of dollars for FIDF (one recent gala in New York raised $26 million, Ynet News reported). The US-based organization describes its mission as helping to support "educational, social, cultural, and recreational programs and facilities for the young men and women soldiers of Israel who defend the Jewish homeland," as well as fallen soldiers' families. The proceeds from the LA concert will go to the Negev Wellbeing and Educational Centers, an FIDF project to build sports facilities, a library and synagogues on the IDF's new training campus in the Negev desert. The event's co-host, billionaire TV and movie producer Haim Saban, described it to Ynet as "our opportunity to thank the soldiers who defend the state." The soldiers defended it most recently in Operation Pillar of Defense, the week-long offensive in Gaza that killed over 150 Palestinians, more than 100 of them civilians. Six Israelis died, four civilians and two soldiers. The timing hasn't been lost on activists, who questioned why Stevie would have chosen now to befriend the IDF. More than 4,000 people signed an online petition asking Wonder not to perform, "as a conscientious American advocate for human rights and dignity." The petition, hosted by Change.org, compares Israel to South Africa in the time of apartheid, which Wonder himself was arrested for protesting in 1985. Check out the photo gallery above to see other celebrities who have made friends with the Israeli military.

SpaceX announced an audacious plan on Wednesday to land an approximately 6,000kg spacecraft on the surface of Mars. This simple declaration from the uber-popular rocket company drew a ton of questions from all quarters, and Ars spoke to a range of people across the space industry to get some answers. How big a milestone would this be? Can SpaceX do it? Is the plan realistic? And why does Rice play Texas, anyway? (OK, we didn't actually try to figure out that last one.) Is this really a big deal? Oh, heavens, yes. No private company has ever launched a significant, independently financed expedition into deep space, let alone all the way to Mars. In fact, only two world powers have ever softly landed spacecraft on Mars. The United States has done so half a dozen times, and the Soviet Union did it once with Mars 3 in 1971—although the vehicle failed after sending back just 15 seconds of data. And all previous soft landings have been relatively small and light; SpaceX is talking about landing a Dragon weighing about 6,000kg on the surface of Mars. The previous landing heavyweight was Curiosity, at 900kg. Soft-landing a 6,000kg object on Mars would be a stunning achievement for NASA or any government-backed space agency. For a private company, it's unheard of. Can they do it? Why not? In just the last six months, SpaceX has successfully launched and then recovered the first stages of multiple Falcon 9 rockets, first landing them on the ground and then later landing on an autonomous drone ship. SpaceX is known for making bold promises, and—eventually—delivering on them. However, the company has missed deadlines before, and making the 2018 launch window to Mars will be a real challenge. What’s so challenging about the timeframe? The 2018 launch presupposes that the company’s Falcon Heavy rocket will be ready to fly by 2018. That launch vehicle, capable of hefting 53 tons to low-Earth orbit (almost twice the ground-to-LEO payload capacity of the Space Shuttle), has already slipped in its development several times. SpaceX is now talking about a test flight by the end of this year, but there is low confidence in the launch industry that the company will make the deadline. One reason for the delays may be complexity: Falcon Heavy combines three Falcon 9 core stages for a total of 27 engines. Nevertheless, when SpaceX gets the vehicle flying, Falcon Heavy's economy is tantalizing, slashing the cost of getting tons of cargo into space. If the vehicle isn’t ready for 2018, the launch would likely slip to 2020, when the next window for a fast transit to Mars opens. If SpaceX gets the big rocket to work, then what? Probably the biggest remaining hurdle would be planetary protection. Attorney Michael Listner, founder of Space Law and Policy Solutions, explained to Ars that Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty requires countries to ensure that launches from within their borders take precautionary measures to prevent contamination of other planets. If SpaceX can’t demonstrate that it's complying with the terms of the treaty with Red Dragon, decontaminating both the inside and outside of the vehicle, the Federal Aviation Administration could withhold a launch license. Phil Larson, a SpaceX official, said the company is working toward meeting the requirements. “SpaceX takes planetary protection seriously, and we are working with relevant NASA officials to ensure proper procedures are followed,” he told Ars. Is SpaceX working with NASA, then? NASA is providing advice and guidance to SpaceX through a Space Act Agreement. The agency and the company have been long-time partners through NASA’s commercial cargo and commercial crew programs, and this continued cooperation is an extension of that relationship. It's likely that NASA, with its assets in orbit around Mars, will help facilitate communication between the Red Dragon and Earth. But NASA is not providing any funds to support the effort to land a Dragon on Mars. What’s in it for NASA? Soft-landing on Mars is complicated because of the planet's extremely thin atmosphere. According to Tabatha Thompson, a spokeswoman for NASA, the agency is interested in potentially cribbing from whatever techniques SpaceX uses to slow and land the Red Dragon. “The collaboration offers NASA the potential flight technology demonstration of critical entry, descent, and landing for human exploration—particularly supersonic retro-propulsion—in the Mars atmosphere," Thompson explained. "SpaceX has sought NASA’s support because the agency has unique expertise in deep space exploration in areas such as deep space communication and navigation.” A successful mission may also open the door to future cooperation between SpaceX and NASA's aims to return soil samples from the surface of Mars. How much will it cost? SpaceX isn't saying. The Falcon Heavy list price for a launch is $135 million, and then there’s the cost of the Dragon spacecraft, the mission planning, executing and monitoring the flight, and any number of other factors. Industry sources speculate that the cost probably would be in the range of at $300 million to $500 million for a soup-to-nuts mission. That's just a guess, though—no hard numbers are available. Why is SpaceX doing this? Because Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars. As noted earlier, one of the most important first steps is figuring out how to land stuff on the red planet, which has a thin atmosphere and therefore doesn't provide a very effective medium for aerobraking. A spacecraft must attain a great velocity (and therefore invest a lot of energy) to reach Mars in six to nine months, and once it's there, it must then somehow shed that energy and slow down. Musk believes the upgraded Dragon 2 spacecraft will be able to use its eight SuperDraco engines to hammer away at its velocity and then land on Mars in a powered descent, similar to the way the Apollo Lunar Module landed on the moon. This too is technology NASA would be eager to see demonstrated. But the only way to be sure is to give it a try without cargo or people. If this test works, Musk will have checked one of many boxes required to safely send humans to Mars. Doesn’t NASA have plans to go to Mars, too? Yes, NASA says it's on a Journey to Mars, although there is some skepticism in the aerospace community about how real that venture actually is. NASA is cooperating with SpaceX on its Red Dragon mission, but if SpaceX is successful, it could prove embarrassing for the space agency (though the real shame more appropriately lies with policymakers). NASA has spent nearly $20 billion on the Space Launch System rocket and Orion space capsule to date, and in the absolute best-case scenario will fly them around the Moon at the end of 2018. How would the public react if a private company can, largely on its own dime, develop nearly comparable vehicles and fly all the way to Mars in the same year? But, again, can a private company really do this? Ars put that question to Rick Tumlinson, an aerospace entrepreneur and de facto evangelist for the "New Space" movement—that cadre of young companies like SpaceX that are trying to break the mold of traditional aerospace. “We’re seeing a paradigm shift,” Tumlinson told us. “It’s like a roller coaster moment. You slowly get to the top, and you’re rolling along like we've been, and then all of a sudden it’s going to accelerate. What we’re seeing is the beginning of that with exploration.” Tumlinson argued that in 2016 the SpaceXs, the Blue Origins, and other new space companies are doing remarkable things in space. If SpaceX succeeds, what comes next? Like Musk, Tumlinson is one of the true believers in settlement on other worlds, and he thinks the true purpose of NASA and the nation’s space program should be to enable humans to move into the solar system. The Red Dragon mission would lay down a marker, he said. “Being able to demonstrate that you are capable of putting a spacecraft on Mars that is in the range of one needed to carry the first humans there—that is firing the first shot of a revolution that’s going to lead to the settlement of space," Tumlinson said. "Being able to show you can land that kind of spacecraft puts you on a track that people have to take seriously.” In short, if Red Dragon does land, it validates Musk's vision of colonizing Mars. Keep your hands and feet inside the ride, because this roller coaster only gets faster from here.

Innovation is a mindset — not just something you do once or twice a week — and Hollywood’s media companies have done a pretty poor job of it, a panel of New Media experts said in the final panel at TheGrill, TheWrap’s fourth annual Media Leadership Conference on Tuesday. Los Angeles-based legacy companies have been slow to adopt the Silicon Valley way, said Rich Raddon, co-founder of Venice-based Zefr, which helps content owners and brands manage their business on YouTube. “Not a lot of that culture has really rubbed off on SoCal media companies,” said Raddon, a former producer (“A Slipping Down Life”) and director of the Los Angeles Film Festival from 2000 to 2009. “I just found a strong affinity to how people were building business up there.” Also read: TheGrill: Online-Video-Giant Maker’s Chief – We’ll Be the Next Viacom (Video) The panel, titled “Innovators panel: Meet the Folks We’ll All Be Working For in 10 Years,” also included Tumblr’sDavid Hayes and Lowercase Capital partner Matt Mazzeo. It was moderated by TheWrap’s Lucas Shaw. Raddon relayed the story of a major film studio that hosted a weekly “innovation group” – which was managed by, of all things, the company’s human-resources department. (At right: Hayes, Mazzeo and Raddon) “It’s hilarious,” he said. “Innovation is a mindset, not just a word.” But there’s good news: A whole lot of companies who do get it are sprouting up all over town. “This city is seeing this massive growth and explosion in tech companies,” said Mazzeo, whose Lowercase Capital advises and invests in companies at the junction of tech and media. “A lot of this is happening in mobile. It couldn’t be a more exciting time to be playing in both worlds right now.” Also read: TheGrill: Market-Research Leader Bruzzese – Our Industry Is Broken (Video) And there’s no bigger nexus point than YouTube — another thing the panelists don’t think Hollywood is getting its head around. “This town has a misperception about what’s happened with YouTube, which just keeps going up and up,” said Raddon, citing its staggering growth toward 1 billion unique users per month. The reason many traditionalists turn their nose up at YouTube, he said, is that it’s still not easy to monetize there — especially the platform’s wicked-fast growing overseas users. “But you gotta have some vision here,” he said. “In the early days of cable, the big networks were sitting around doing the same thing … My kids know two things: They know YouTube and Neflix. They know a little about what Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel are.” Also read: TheGrill: On the Scene at TheWrap’s Media Leadership Conference (Photos) At the suggestion that emerging storytelling forms — short videos, gifs, the like — would be so disruptive as to put an end to the two-hour movie or 10-season TV show, Mazzeo bristled: “Our consumption patterns might change,” he said, “but the storytelling forms will survive. The people I deal with in tech may think, ‘Well, this is better.’ But they don’t think the other thing has to die.” Hayes, entertainment evangelist at Tumblr and head of the blogging platform’s think-tank CANVAS, said people are simply finding different ways to use different platforms, and young people are already acclimated to those differences. “They’re being trained at a young age to be satisfied by a three-minute video, or a three-second gif,” he said. “A lot of these platforms are being used to market story forms. We’ll soon see them be used to deliver those story forms.”

One of the tough parts of running a business is deciding when to put more effort into something and when to not. We know we've been pretty silent here since the end of the season, and after a lot of internal debate, we've decided to stop posting editorial content on the BBR blog. This obviously has nothing to do with the quality of the content produced by lead writer, Neil Paine. His posts were phenomenal, and I know many readers looked forward to them every week. A big thanks to Neil for making this such a vital place for basketball discussion and analysis. As a small company, focus is vital for our success, and we are choosing to focus our energy on pumping out as much statistical basketball data as possible and that means cutting back in other areas. None of the existing content is going to go away. We'll keep it up here for as long as the site is open (which we intend to be a very long time). If you would like to contact Neil, he's available at np@sports-reference.com. Thank you most of all for your patronage.

Tool Announces"Vicarious" As New Single, Release Date Set Band Photo: Tool (?) Jonathan Cohen of Billboard.com reports: Tool has revealed the track list for its next studio album, "10,000 Days." As previously reported, the set is due May 2 via Volcano. The first single/album opener "Vicarious," which stretches past the seven-minute mark, is due to arrive April 17 at U.S. rock radio outlets. True to form, the 11-track "10,000 Days" sports a number of epic tunes, particularly "Rosetta Stoned" and "10,000 Days (Wings Pt. 2)," both of which clock in at 11:14. Near the end of the disc are the substantially lengthy "Intension" (7:21) and "Right in Two" (8:56). "10,000 Days" is the follow-up to 2001's "Lateralus," which debuted at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 and has sold 2.3 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. As previously reported, Tool will play its first U.S. show since late 2002 when it headlines the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival on April 30 in Indio, Calif. No other U.S. dates have been confirmed. Afterward, the band will spend the first portion of the summer playing the European festival circuit, with dates on tap through July 9 at Finland's Turku Festival. Here is the track list for "10,000 Days": "Vicarious" "Jambi" "Wings for Marie (Pt. 1)" "10,000 Days (Pt. 2)" "The Pot" "Lipan Conjuring" "Lost Keys (Blame Hofman)" "Rosetta Stoned" "Intension" "Right in Two" "Viginti Tres" Source: Billboard.com

UPDATE: Large geomagnetic storm brewing means Northern Lights tonight The National Weather Service said the aurora should be visible tonight as far south as Missouri, where clear skies allow. A strong magnetic storm is expected to hit Earth over the next two days. The strength of the magnetic storm means northern lights could be visible as far south as the Detroit and Chicago areas. A large sunspot erupted September 4, 2017, throwing a coronal mass ejection (CME) toward the earth. A coronal mass ejection is a huge explosion of magnetic field and plasma from the Sun's corona. When CMEs impact the Earth's magnetosphere, they are responsible for geomagnetic storms and enhanced auroras, according to NOAA. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a Strong Magnetic Storm Watch for the nights of Sept. 6 and Sept. 7. This means northern lights will possibly be visible farther south than during a typical northern lights event. Northern lights forecasts use a rating system called the kP index to gauge how likely northern lights will be visible at a certain latitude. Northern lights are typically visible as far south as a kP value of 7. On the map above, I drew the expected location of the kP=7. So northern lights may be visible as far south as the Detroit area, Chicago, Cleveland, Des Moines and Syracuse, NY. But you won't be able to see the northern lights in the big cities. You will have to get out into the countryside where it's completely dark. To get updated info on the northern lights, go here. There is a good factor pointing toward seeing the northern lights in the next two nights. Skies at night should generally be more clear than cloudy in the Great Lakes region. We will have afternoon showers pop up both today and Thursday. At night those showers should diminish. While the skies may not clear entirely in all locations, the spotty showers will just leave isolated clouds in most areas. The negative to watching northern lights tonight and Thursday is a nearly full moon. The bright full moon we have been enjoying the past two nights will throw light up into the sky. The extra moonlight won't totally block out northern lights hopes, but could make them harder to see in marginal northern lights areas. Get a nap in this evening, and head to a dark location toward midnight. Any questions or comments, please post below.

What can be wrong with giving scholarships to the meritorious? A meritorious society is a just society, right? Giving money according to “worth” seems way better, ethically, than giving to the well-connected, or to those of a favored race or religion, right? Well, maybe. But then again, sometimes maybe not. The problem of law school merit scholarships is a complicated and nuanced one, especially for those who have not considered it at length. In brief, here are five background points underlying the ethical conundrum I will subsequently sketch out: Law Schools, like car dealerships, have list prices for their wares. Tuition charges for all law schools must be stated on their web sites and in their written materials, pursuant to regulators’ (ABA, AALS) requirements. There must be some silly people out there who pay list price for their cars, I suppose, and there are certainly people who pay full tuition under the impression that that’s what everyone pays. But in reality not everyone pays list price, and those who have done so are quickly disabused when they arrive at 1L. Law Schools always want to attract the “best” students, and one way to attract them is to price discriminate, i.e., to offer discounts from list. “Best,” of course, is a concept with many possible denotations, and in days of yore American law schools tended to have diverse understandings of it. Today, though, U.S. News and World Report rankings are so influential tha they have become the cart driving the law school admissions horse. USNWR has homogenized our understanding of student value – Law School Admissions Test scores and undergraduate Grade Point Averages are the measures of student excellence. The higher the median LSAT and GPA scores of the admitted student body, the higher a law school’s ranking will be (the two factors combined account for 22.5% of a school’s ranking), and the higher the ranking, ceteris paribus, the better will be the jobs offered to graduates, the better paid will be its alumni base, the better will be the faculty lured to work there, and the better will be the students enticed to apply there. Rising ranking thus stimulates a “virtuous circle” while falling ranking leads to a “vicious circle” that, if left unattended, can result what some fear to be a “death spiral.” Buying better students is one attempt to move from a vicious circle to a virtuous one. Today, law jobs are quite hard to come by for many law school grads, and law school tuition as risen so high during the boom years that many grads are saddled with student loans they have great difficulty repaying. Bankruptcy is not normally available to discharge student loan debt. So minimizing student loans through discounts from tuition list price is a high priority for law school applicants. In our increasingly meritorious nation, the cream has often already risen to the top. The wealthy tend to be smarter and better educated than the poorer – and they tend to have children who are smarter and better educated than are the children of poorer parents. These five factors play out in predictable ways. At super-elite law schools (Yale/Harvard/Stanford, etc.), virtually all students have stellar LSAT and GPA scores. Those with such scores are willing to pay list price for the experience, the contacts and the credential these Brahmin schools provide – and these schools can therefore eliminate merit scholarships and admit selectively based on criteria other than LSAT and GPA. [Did you rise from humble beginnings? Did you overcome your physical handicap and climb Everest, writing a Pulitzer-winning account of your exploit?] But at most schools, merit scholarships will be offered to the high LSAT and GPA scorers among applicants to that school. Most schools must pay to lure those scorers away from other, equally or possibly higher-ranked schools that are bidding for their attendance. And those merit scholars will tend to be more intelligent and from tonier zip codes than lower-ranked admittees to the same law school. One key additional fact bears mention now. It is far from irrational for USNWR to use median LSAT and GPA to rank schools. Student LSAT and GPA scores are, unsurprisingly, significantly correlated with law school performance. So it’s meaningful to say that the student body at a higher ranked school tends to be “better” than the student body at a lower-ranked school. Employers can use school rank as a proxy in making employment decisions – schools are a convenient aggregation of students of a given talent level. That’s how the virtuous (or vicious, as the case may be) snowball starts rolling. The upshot of all this is that, at most law schools, price discrimination results in poorer, less well-educated students “subsidizing” (paying higher tuition than) richer, better-educated students. For their subsidy, poorer students are penalized a second time at graduation – because the subsidized richer students will tend to finish at the top of the class and get better paying jobs, while the poorer students will find it harder and harder to find employment to pay for their higher student loans. Thus are “list price” payers made to seem to be chumps over and over again, while the recipients of merit scholarships laugh, as it were, all the way to the bank. This looks in many ways like a classic regressive tax. What should be done about this? That’s not clear – it’s not self-evident that merit scholarships are “unfair” or “racist” or “classist”, even if merit scholarship recipients tend to be from tonier zip codes and of paler hues. Results don’t correlate with motives. But the results are regressive, it seems, and if regressivity is itself justification for reform, a second question arises: What can be done? As indicated above, the Yales of this world offer essentially no merit scholarships – they attract LSAT and GPA studs willing to pay list price. Their scholarships are need-based, so redistribution tends to be from haves to have-nots. At the other end of the USNWR spectrum, University of La Verne College of Law in California just announced that, like certain innovative car dealerships, it will charge the same non-negotiable “discounted” price to all matriculants. Merit scholarships are out at La Verne, and instead of a list price of $39,900 replete with heavy price discrimination, all new matriculants will pay $25K. It’s “as if” every student got a $15K scholarship, if you will – though in reality the "discounted" price is an indication of the extent of prior price discrimination. La Verne is a lowest-tier USNWR school, recently provisionally re-accredited after being denied full ABA accreditation, and it is unlikely that it attracted many high-scoring LSAT and GPA stars while price discriminating. Perhaps La Verne has little to lose and much to gain in PR benefits from its new, “fairer” tuition system. But can La Verne’s fixed-price model spread to higher ranked schools? That will be hard to do because of collective action problems – for fixed-price law schools risk losing their best students to rival schools that continue to price discriminate. Rationally, the temptation is to continue to impose the regressive tax. For those who believe this to be ethically problematic, outside intervention may be needed to solve what is essentially a Prisoners’ Dilemma. The ABA might, for instance, ban merit scholarships at accredited schools. US News and World Report might cease using student LSAT and GPA scores in law school rankings. Will these things happen? Count me doubtful. If USNWR abandoned LSAT and GPA, a rival publication would spring up and take its place. And the ABA seems hardly likely to resist pressures by firms that are anxious to use law schools as selection proxies in their hiring process. Law professors are, for the most part, lawyers, and we are bound ethically to make access to our profession accessible to qualified and interested people. Have we done this by setting up a system that transfers resources from the more to the less needy? If so, perhaps we need to rethink what we are doing. Or should we stick our heads in the sand and forget about this whole problem – after all, LSAT test taker numbers are finally increasing again, right? What, us worry? As always, your comments are welcome. Contact me at mkrauss at gmu dot edu.

Why the court will uphold Obamacare For its reputation, mainly Predictions are always hazardous when it comes to the economy, the weather and the Supreme Court. I won’t get near the first two right now, but I’ll hazard a guess on what the court is likely to decide tomorrow: It will uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) by a vote of 6 to 3. Three reasons for my confidence: Advertisement: First, Chief Justice John Roberts is — or should be — concerned about the steadily declining standing of the court in the public’s mind, along with the growing perception that the justices decide according to partisan politics rather than according to legal principle. The 5-4 decision in Citizen’s United, for example, looked to all the world like a political rather than a legal outcome, with all five Republican appointees finding that restrictions on independent corporate expenditures violate the First Amendment, and all four Democratic appointees finding that such restrictions are reasonably necessary to avoid corruption or the appearance of corruption. Or consider the court’s notorious decision in Bush v. Gore. The Supreme Court can’t afford to lose public trust. It has no ability to impose its will on the other two branches of government: As Alexander Hamilton once noted, the court has neither the purse (it can’t threaten to withhold funding from the other branches) or the sword (it can’t threaten police or military action). It has only the public’s trust in the court’s own integrity and the logic of its decisions — both of which the public is now doubting, according to polls. As chief justice, Roberts has a particular responsibility to regain the public’s trust. Another 5-4 decision overturning a piece of legislation as important as Obamacare would further erode that trust. It doesn’t matter that a significant portion of the public may not like Obamacare. The issue here is the role and institutional integrity of the Supreme Court, not the popularity of a particular piece of legislation. Indeed, what better way to show the court’s impartiality than to affirm the constitutionality of legislation that may be unpopular but is within the authority of the other two branches to enact? Second, Roberts can draw on a decision by a Republican-appointed and highly respected conservative jurist, Judge Laurence Silberman, who found Obamacare to be constitutional when the issue came to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The judge’s logic was lucid and impeccable — so much so that Roberts will try to lure Justice Anthony Kennedy with it, to join Roberts and the four liberal justices, so that rather than another 5-4 split (this time on the side of the Democrats), the vote will be 6-3. Third and finally, Roberts (and Kennedy) can find adequate Supreme Court precedent for the view that the Commerce Clause of the Constitution gives Congress and the president the power to regulate healthcare — given that heathcare coverage (or lack of coverage) in one state so obviously affects other states; that the market for health insurance is already national in many respects; and that other national laws governing insurance (Social Security and Medicare, for example) require virtually everyone to pay (in these cases, through mandatory contributions to the Social Security and Medicare trust funds). OK, so I’ve stuck my neck out. We’ll find out tomorrow how far.

Turkish Cymbal Making 23.2.2017 by Engin Altunlu As the resident “Turk” of the Bbop team, I thought that it could only be relevant for me to talk about the history of the renowned Turkish cymbals. Throughout the world of music and the many musical styles which exist today, Turkish cymbals remain highly respected for their unique and diverse sound. The production in many companies is still carried out in the traditional way. The History: Cymbal production began in Turkey in the 1200s. The cymbals created at the time were created for just one purpose: the marching band of the Ottoman Army. These cymbals were crafted by Armenian master artisans. The secret to their production has remained just that, a secret, ever since. The man behind the formula for the perfect cymbal was Avedis Zilciyan (Zildjian): “Zilci”, means “Master creator of cymbals” in Turkish and “Yan” means “the son of” in Armenian. Thus, “the son of the cymbal master”. In 1623, with the permission of Sultan Murat IV, the now world-renowned company Zildjian was founded. Towards the end of the 7th century, Westerners had discovered the existence of these cymbals and began to incorporate them into their orchestras. During the 1780s, the cymbals began to be used in Military bands as well as Haydn’s and Mozart’s Orchestras. In 1851, Avedis Zildjian’s son, Kerope Zildjian (whose name is found in the K-series) began to show cymbals in expositions, helping the company's transition into the European market. In 1909, with the aid of the Ottoman Empire, the company was able to build a second factory elsewhere. The cymbals produced bore the description “Made in Turkey, Istanbul” and later in modern times, were used by some of the world’s most famous musicians such as The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Cream, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Guns N’ Roses and many more. This craft passed through the generations until when, after the death of the final grandson Mikal Zildjian, the world awaited the end of the legend and its secret cymbal formula. It was however, the 9 year old apprentices of the final artisan who saved the legacy. They knew everything! Their names were Mehmet Tamdeger and Agop Tomurcuk, and the company was to be called Istanbul. Thanks to them alone, the legend could continue to live until today in Istanbul. In 1981, the company started to reproduce the traditional cymbals in an Istanbul studio. After Agop’s death in 1996, Mehmet continued making these but it was Agop’s son who then stepped in. He claimed his father’s section of the company and the Agop cymbals and like that the company was divided in to: Istanbul Mehmet and Istanbul Agop. These days, Turkish Cymabls are produced (in the traditional way and with the traditional formula) only by the companies Istanbul Mehmet-Agop, Bosphorus, Turkish, Pasha, Sabian, Amedia, Masterwork, Diril. If we return to Zildjian, the son of Michael Zildjian left to the United States in 1929 and opened a cymbal factory. These however, were not handmade like the originals. It was the grandson of Mikael, Bob Zildjian who became the creator of the well known brand Sabian. Creation: The first phase of production is the "mixing”. The cymbals are made of bronze (B20) which is an alloy (80% copper / 20% tin). This is one of the most frequently used formulas. It is at this stage also the "secret process" takes place as it has for centuries, which gives the bronze its strength, durability and flexibility. This is truly a guarded practise and only the master builders know the secret. Once I had the good fortune of visiting the studio in Istanbul. There was one small section of the process which they don’t let you see! The second phase is called the “casting”; the molten alloy in the melting pot is poured directly into molds. The quantity of alloy can be different for each mold depending on the type of cymbal. After pouring, the alloy hardens in the cold. The pieces are then very carefully removed from their molds and grouped according to their weight. Now, these folded pieces are ready for the next step, reheating. The castings are now ready to be heated to around 700-800 Celsius in a kiln. Each casting is heated uniformly by a qualified master of the art. They are now soft and ready to pass through a rolling machine. These form round metallic disks which are called “blanks”. The blanks cool down and are then sent to the presser. At this phase the blanks are still very fragile and oversized. After having marked the centre of the blank, they are put back in the kiln in order to soften the metal and make it more pliable so that the pressing machine can perform its job more effectively. The blanks are then placed out into cool air, and the combination of cold/hot hardens the metal to a new level. Now the B20 is stronger, more durable and has a better sound than ever before. After cutting the correct shape from the blanks, the off-cuts are sent back to the melting pot for recycling. The next phase in the process is the “hammering”. This is the most important procedure of the whole production in terms of honing the cymbals' sound and can only be performed by qualified artisans using centuries-old hammering techniques and wisdom. These techniques are responsible for the dark, complex and musical qualities in traditional Turkish cymbals. The process of hammering requires mastering the art, competence and endless hard work. The contours, shape and profile of the cymbals are created just from hammer blows. It is worth noting that, for example, a 16” Crash requires around 1500 hits to be completed. This gives all cymbals a slightly unique sound, even within the same series or size. Now we pass on to the phase which is called “lathing”. This is once again a very important phase of cymbal production and can affect the sound of the cymbal directly. Lathing cuts the circular grooves into the cymbal and permits the vibrations to move easily across its surface. Finally, we come to the testing and labelling phase! After this long and arduous process, in order to assure their quality, the cymbals are tested by professional drummers. The tests all take place in a studio to decide if the cymbal was built well enough. If they pass this test then they are ready to sell. Here is a video of cymbal making in the Istanbul Mehmet workshop: Brands: Of course there are many cymbal companies in existence, however, I will focus on those which produce cymbals respecting the traditional processes. Zildjian Zildjian is a trace of Anatolia in the United States. Founded by Avedis in 1623, Zildjian is one of the oldest companies in the whole world. Know-how, the secret process and luxury instruments have made Zildjian one of the most reputable brands in the whole world for drummers and percussionists. The most well know series include: ZBT Series, A Custom, A Zildjian, K Custom, Z3, FX Series Istanbul Agop Istanbul cymbals are well recognised by their "Traditional" series, specifically ‘Istanbul Agop’. Istanbul Agop is a brand which continues to this day to produce cymbals the traditional way. They are also hugely respected by the drumming and percussion community for the unique sound of their cymbals. Some popular Agop cymbals have included: • Istanbul Agop Signature 21″ ou 22″ Ride • Mel Lewis Signature Series 22″ Ride • 8" Xist Power Splash • 20" Mantra Crash Istanbul Mehmet Another company to continue the heritage of the Zilciyan family in Istanbul. Here are some well known models by Istanbul Mehmet cymbals: • MC Jazz Hi-Hats • Origin dark Rides • Legend Dark HI-Hats • Mikael Z Ride Turkish Cymbals I had heard about this brand in the past but I really got to meet the team of Turkish Cymbals thanks to the chance meeting of Özgür Can Öney, the drummer of Manga (the rock group which achieved 2nd place in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2010) during a visit to Musikmesse 2015. He was there to present Turkish Cymbals, a company who has become world renowned for their quality in the world of rock and jazz. We chatted a little about their production and the company in general. Turkish Cymbals has a different formula and has obtained some older artisans who had previously worked in other companies throughout Istanbul. Here are some well-known series: • Crash Ride C-RCR • Crash Paper Thin • China AP-CH • Ride Bell RBR-BBL • HI-HAT J-H Sabian Sabian was created in 1981 in Canada by Robert Zildjian, the son of Avedis Zildjian III. Sabian take their name from the creates children, Sally, Bill and Andy. Some Sabian series include: • Neil Peart’s Signature Paragon 16’’ • AA séries Vintage Bright • XSR séries • Artisan Séries

Youngster completes switch to Premier League side Leyton Orient’s under-15s player Jay Beckford has completed a transfer to Premier League side Arsenal.The fee was subject to the Elite Player Performance Programme compensation agreement.And while disappointed to lose the youngster to the Gunners, Academy Director Andy Edwards wishes him all the best for the future.“He has been a credit to the club all the time he has been here,” said Edwards. “We are disappointed to lose him. We wish him all the best at Arsenal.“We have got some exceptional players in our academy of which Jay is one.“Arsenal have met the valuation which is linked to the EPPP guidelines and unfortunately we lose him.“The club have received a sum of money which is quite substantial should he go on and become successful there.“We are doing a good job, and as part of that sometimes you are going to lose your better players, but we still think we have got a lot of good players in our system who have got the potential to come through and play in the first team.”

“It was an idea whose time had come, and the technology finally caught up with the vision.” -Albert “Skip” Rizzo, Ph.D. If you’re at all familiar with VR, you’ve probably heard that VR is more than “just games” a time or two. Used to describe applications of VR that go beyond first-person shooters—think education, conservation, training, etc.—the phrase is something that many in the industry intuitively understand. Still, it continues to merit saying, especially when we talk about the research and clinical practice of virtual reality in cognitive and physical therapy treatment by leading psychologists and clinicians—which goes way beyond gaming; it has the potential to change the way we think about therapy altogether. Despite the recent surge in VR development over the last few years, the idea of using virtual reality in a therapeutic setting isn’t a new idea. Research regarding VR simulations to treat specific phobias was around as early as the nineties, but the technology simply wasn’t advanced enough for such treatment to be feasible. Head mounted displays were clunky, computer processing speeds laughable, and 3D graphics downright primitive in comparison to what’s available VR today. Perhaps even more importantly: the technology required for advanced VR in the 90s was too costly to ever be seriously considered for mass distribution. Clearly, things have changed. “We’re seeing more companies emerge in the last two years than we’ve seen in the last twenty years,” said Skip Rizzo, Ph.D, director for medical virtual reality at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. “It was an idea whose time had come, and the technology finally caught up with the vision.” An unlikely contributor led the way in funding and support for VR therapy research: the US military. Operation Iraqi Freedom led to an unforeseen number of troops returning home from the battlefront with physical and emotional trauma, prompting the military to seek out new, innovative treatment options for their soldiers and vets—especially those suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Virtual Iraq VRET was developed from 2005-2007 as an answer to the military’s problem at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies. During the early stages of development, Rizzo considered different treatment options, but eventually decided on exposure therapy for the project. “Whenever I design a VR application in a clinical area, I look at, okay, what do we know works in the real world that we can use VR to amplify, or extend the effect?” said Rizzo. “Exposure therapy was a no brainer.” Exposure therapy employs the patient’s imagination and memory to actively engage with their “triggers” or source of trauma, as opposed to avoiding it. With time, prolonged exposure to the trauma lessens its hold on the individual. Though traditional exposure therapy is the most widely accepted therapy for PTSD, it has its limitations. Some patients are unwilling or unable to recount the traumatic narrative, resulting in ineffective treatment. VR enhances the treatment by allowing patients and clinicians to take the guesswork out of the experience by dropping them into a virtual scenario that is tailored to their individual experience. In VR, the patient is fully emotionally immersed in the traumatic situation while physically remaining in a safe, controlled setting. The use of VR in exposure treatment also enhances the experience for the therapist, who can view the experience on a screen and witness first-hand what exactly triggers the patient, along with listening to the patient’s recollection of the event. Over time, Virtual Iraq VRET advanced and morphed into project BRAVEMIND, which yielded exceedingly positive results through clinical trials. BRAVEMIND is now being used in VAs, university clinics, and Army, Navy, and Airforce medical centers to treat PTSD patients. “A little known secret is, since we’ve been doing the work, the two iterations of the exposure therapy system have been deployed to over a hundred sites,” said Rizzo. Despite the wide distribution, he hesitates to call VR therapy mainstream just yet, saying instead that “it’s right at the tipping point.” Since its creation, BRAVEMIND has expanded to include treatment scenarios for PTSD in combat medics and victims of military sexual assault. Psychologists are also researching ways that VR can be used in PTSD diagnosis as well as treatment. As Rizzo’s team looks to expand the therapy to non-combat related PTSD patients, the potential seems limitless. “We’re finding out new things all the time,” he said. Though PTSD treatment is a pretty strong focus of research for many VR therapists, in part due to support and funding from the US military, psychologists have also successfully incorporated virtual reality into treatment for patients with a number of other physical and cognitive disorders. For example, the very nature of VR makes it an extremely effective tool for treating patients with phobias—something that the Virtual Reality Medical Center has been doing for the past 21 years. While many VR therapy treatment options are still in conceptual or testing phases, the VRMC has treated a staggering number of cases across its three US based clinics since it first opened its doors. “I’ve conducted over 10,000 VR therapy and training sessions,” said VRMC President Dr. Brenda K. Wiederhold, Ph.D., MBA, BCB, BCN. Using VR-enhanced Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in which patients are taught breathing with biofeedback techniques that are applied in the VR world, the team of psychologists have successfully treated patients with a fear of needles, claustrophobia, fear of public speaking, flying related anxiety, and more. Patients treated at VRMC often have phobias so severe that facing their fear—be it spiders, blood, flying, etc.—in the real world would be simply inconceivable. VR gives people with phobias the ability and power to confront their fears head on in a virtual setting. “It’s empowering for the patient,” said Wiederhold. VR therapy treatments for PTSD and phobias are similar in that they use the virtual environment to have the patient confront their fear or trauma in a safe, controlled setting. However, VR can be applied in completely different ways to treat other disorders like depression. An innovative study by UCL Barcelona professor Chris Brewin used a “body switch” method to help alleviate depression symptoms in a small, controlled trial. Depressed patients entered a VR world in which there was a crying child who needed their help. After the patients consoled the child, they virtually switched bodies with the child and heard their own voice through an avatar consoling them. Though the study showed overwhelmingly positive results, the small trial lacking a control group needs extensive further testing and research before it can be used regularly as a treatment for people with depression. Other methods of VR depression treatment are being explored by The VR Therapy Center in Grand Rapids, MI. Since it opened in January 2015, the center has treated over 300 patients suffering from depression using VR. Founded by psychotherapist Thomas J. Overly, LMSW, the clinic’s team has found that VR treatment is most effective in patients with comorbid depressive symptoms; 75% of the patients treated at the clinic have depression symptoms that are connected to other behavioral or interpersonal issues such as PTSD. The therapy has improved depressive symptoms in many patients, but Overly and his team are on a mission to improve upon the current platforms available for VR depression treatment. Enter PromenaVR: a software system designed by Overly that allows clinicians to actually enter the VR environment with patients and have customized, two-way interactions with them inside of the virtual world. The experience is tailored so that the clinician appears as any race, gender, age, or body type depending on the specific needs of the patient, creating a “story that is their story.” Settings range from a casual living room to open public spaces. Currently in beta, the software system was created “to treat depression and comorbidity issues that aren’t being addressed in typical VR therapy platforms that are available right now,” said PromenaVR COO, CMO Tanya Kellen. While not being used to treat patients just yet, the team at VR Therapy Center and PromenaVR believes that the interactive, two-way immersion system is the key to successfully treating depression using virtual reality in the future. From PTSD, phobia, depression treatment and beyond, it’s clear that the future of VR therapy is extremely bright. Though it’s unclear how or when the technology will finally “go mainstream,” Rizzo predicts that it will do so in waves, with VR pain management therapy as the first to really be accepted as standard practice nationwide. “I think in the next year you’re going to see more and more hospitals using VR for pain distraction or discomfort reduction,” said Rizzo. VR is a tool that has the power to change the way we think about therapy, but at the end of the day, Rizzo believes that it is just that—a tool. “In one sense, VR offers some magic in delivering this type of content, but, we’re always operating from a base of what we know works in the real world,” said Rizzo. “How can we do it better, more effectively, more consistently, and in a more engaging way.” In other words, VR won’t replace the expertise and care of psychologists and psychiatrists or the tried and true techniques in therapy that have been used for decades. But it can—and will—improve and enhance the therapy experience in ways that haven’t even been imagined yet. After all: “It’s a revolution.” Image Credit: USC Institute for Creative Technologies and UCL Barcelona